KENYA AIRWAYS’ AGM LOOKS AT FUTURE AS SHAREHOLDERS PUT 2012/13 BEHIND THEM
(Posted 27th September 2013)
‘Kenya Airways experienced an extremely difficult operating environment’ was the tenor of the airline’s Annual General Meeting held yesterday in Nairobi at the Bomas of Kenya.
While passenger numbers were slightly up to 3.664.884 during the 2012/13 financial year, which ended on 31st March, most other key indicators were down, some of them sharply as shareholders had to come to term with a significant loss and the immediate prospect of lower share values combined with no dividends for the year.
Average load factors reduced to 68.7 percent from last year’s 71.7 percent, prompting the Kenya Airways Group to reduce staff on a year on year comparison to 3.470 at the airline and 4.006 group wide, a reduction of 828 overall.
The results however did not stop the implementation of ‘Plan Mawingo’, the strategic 10 year outlook developed 2 years ago, and the fleet at the end of the FY stood at 43 aircraft ( a year ago the airline operated just 34 aircraft) – with one more E190 already added since then and two more aircraft including a B777-300ER expected to arrive this calendar year – serving 62 destinations on domestic, regional, continental and intercontinental routes. The year also saw the Embraer E190 take over as the work horse aircraft in the fleet, now serving domestic and regional destinations including the Seychelles. Besides 5 Embraer E170 are presently 13 E 190 jets flying the Kenyan colours and more deliveries are due in 2013 and 2014.
Many readers will also be keen to learn about KQ’s plans to launch their own in house low cost airline Jambo Jet, which according to statements made by Dr. Titus Naikuni, CEO of Kenya Airways and Group Managing Director, will see flights commence in the first quarter of 2014, using aircraft presently in use by Kenya Airways and initially serving domestic routes, where KQ hopes to see significant cost savings as full service flights will progressively be supplemented if not eventually replaced by the subsidiary.
The mood at the Bomas was described as upbeat, as the performance indicators for Q1 of the current FY, the period April to June, was already showing marked improvements compared with 2012. This is giving hope that the Q2 will follow that trend and all eyes will be on the release of data for the July – September period in a few weeks time. The full financial statement and annual report are available in PDF format at the airline’s website via the following link:
