KCAA continues to drag their legs on pending Fastjet applications

KENYA CIVIL AVIATION CONTINUES TO DELAY DECISION ON FASTJET APPLICATION

(Posted 08th August 2015)

Kenya’s beleaguered Civil Aviation Authority, under pressure to allow foreign airlines to fly scheduled services into Mombasa to aid the tourism recovery at the Kenya coast, also continues to stomp into the face of official government declarations that foreign investment in the country is welcome.

The pending application by Fastjet for an air service license, the prerequisite to set up and airline and commence the process to attain an air operator certificate, continues to be stalled by the KCAA as no decision has been gazetted after the last licensing hearing.

Obliged by law must the KCAA publish their decisions on applications pending before them for consideration but for over a year now has the Fastjet application been deferred from hearing to hearing, even as a new board has since been installed.

THE KENYA GAZETTE

Published by Authority of the Republic of Kenya
(Registered as a Newspaper at the G.P.O.)

Vol. CXVII-No. 83

NAIROBI, 07 August,2015

Price Sh. 60

The notice in the latest Kenya Gazette, Vol. CXVII-No.83, available to readers by clicking on the link below and then accessible via a PDF file (http://kenyalaw.org/kenya_gazette/gazette/volume/MTE5NA–/Vol.%20CXVII-No.%2083) contains a decisions on over two dozen applications which were dealt with of licenses and license variations granted and denied, but the Fastjet application continues to be absent from the list time and again.

Rather unknown applicants like Renegade Air Limited of P.O. Box 1167 – 00621 Nairobi was granted a three year license to fly domestic scheduled services from Nairobi to Mombasa, Malindi, Kisumu and Eldoret, among others, all airports suitable for jet operations, similar to what Fastjet in their application had proposed to do, and yet does it appear that bias once more ruled the day as a new application was approved while a long pending one pushed further into the future.

This is in line with the same Kenya Civil Aviation Authority continuing to stall the landing right application from Fastjet Tanzania for the route from Dar es Salaam to Nairobi inspite of being a designated Tanzanian operator by the Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority.

Calls within Tanzania are getting louder again for sanctions to be restored against Kenyan air operators flying not only into Dar es Salaam but also into Zanzibar, Kilimanjaro and Mwanza in retaliation to the total intransigence shown by the KCAA vis a vis this pending matter.

A tit for tat earlier in the year was resolved on presidential level but the meeting which was to take place to discuss a range of outstanding matters between the two countries on aviation as well as on tourism matters reportedly never did take place.

With the general election campaign in Tanzania now heating up it is only a matter of time before one or the other of the candidates will bring such issues to the fore and demand either action from the outgoing government or else threaten action when taking office after the elections, no doubt to the detriment of bilateral relations.

KCAA meanwhile remains shtumm to such revelations and has opted not to respond publicly to charges laid against them to be anti-investment and anti-air transport liberalization, suggesting that they are well aware of their guilt, and as some suggested complicity with Kenyan air operators desperate to keep Fastjet out of the Kenyan skies, as a locally incorporate airline as well as a Tanzanian airline wanting to fly to Nairobi.

Watch this space for breaking and regular aviation news from across Eastern Africa.