KCAA DID WRITE TO FASTJET CONFIRMING THAT AN ASL WILL BE ISSUED UPON FEE PAYMENT
(Posted 17th October 2015)
It is now ascertained that the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority did indeed write a letter to Fastjet, confirming that they will be issued with an air service license, once the required payment of US Dollars 1.600 has been made.
Dated 08th of October under reference number KCAA/ASL/3Vol.9 (98) does the letter also confirm that the application was launched with the KCAA on 25th of August 2014, i.e. nearly 14 months ago, equally exposing the extraordinary length of time passed before the regulators found it appropriate to respond to the company and finally grant them an ASL. The source close to the KCAA also indicated that payment has since then been received, though no receipt number of the transaction was available.
Since the application was initially submitted have other Kenyan registered airlines obtained their ASL much earlier, suggesting either a deliberate benching of the Fastjet application or else better ‘connections’ by locally owned aviation firms who applied later but got their approval much sooner to go through the process of attaining an Air Operator Certificate and then commencing flights.
Among the routes Fastjet will be able to fly, as and when that happens in Kenya, are flights from Nairobi to Mombasa but also Kisumu and Eldoret among others. International routes were not granted by KCAA, another pointer to the extreme bias this application was and continues to be subjected to.
The aircraft mentioned on the application are Fastjet’s workhorse Airbus A319 but notably also 50 seater Bombardier CRJ’s 100 and 200.
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One Response
When the application was submitted, all those months ago, did fastjet not still own Fly540 Kenya? That would explain the mention of CRJs on the paperwork.