KENYA AIRWAYS ADDS JOHANNESBURG FLIGHTS WHILE LOSING LLW – LUS RIGHTS
The Pride of Africa is set to significantly increase flights between Kenya and South Africa from December onwards, when one of the airline’s recently acquired Embraer E190 jets will be used on the route to add four more flights, increasing capacity from presently 21 to 25 flights a week with 384 seats added on one of Kenya Airways’ busiest destinations on the African continent.
The Embraer will offer both business class – in a 2×1 layout with 12 seats – and economy class in a 2×2 layout with 84 seats – and will operate a mid day departure at 12.10 p.m. before returning to Nairobi at 21.15 hrs at night for convenient connections to the late evening regional and intercontinental departures. It could not be immediately ascertained if this will be an addition for the high season only or will eventually be increased further to mover to four daily flights per day, permitted under the bilateral air services agreement between Kenya and South Africa.
Meanwhile though it was also learned that Kenya Airways had their route rights cancelled between Lilongwe / Malawi and Lusaka / Zambia, where the daily service allowed them the uplift of passengers and cargo on the route under 5th freedom rights. It is understood that this comes as a result of Air Malawi trying to force a KQ into some sort of royalty payments or a fully fledged commercial agreement, using the Malawi civil aviation authorities to do the dirty work for them. Both destinations will continue traffic however, except for the sector LLW – LUS where for the time being the KQ aficionados will have to us other means to travel between the two destinations as Air Malawi according to information at hand only operates three times a week between the two destinations. Watch this space for regular and breaking news from East Africa’s vibrant aviation scene.
