KENYA AIRWAYS COMES TO THE RESCUE OF EAST AFRICANS IN LIBYA
Information just received gives an update of the planned Kenya Airways evacuation flight, operated on a wide body B767-300 from Nairobi via Cairo to Tripoli this afternoon.
The Libyan Civil Aviation Authority eventually did grant a landing permit on humanitarian grounds, as the aircraft was already sitting at Cairo’s International Airport working out the final logistics. As many as 68 Kenyan citizens will be airlifted back home and the remainder of the seats has been given to nationals of Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and Congo DR. South African and Lesotho nationals, plus a few from Sierra Leone in West Africa, will also fly to safety, leaving the present chaotic circumstances of fighting, looting and a general breakdown in law and order behind.
Kenya Airways did confirm that the aircraft will be operated with a crew of 11, an extra engineer in case of technical issues arising – this is a standard precaution when operating such a flight, and will take a total of 191 passengers on board. As this operation goes underway we wish Kenya Airways, and all the crew and passengers God’s Speed, safe landings and a happy reunion with their distraught families in Kenya and the region.
Kenya Airways has been working to put this special flight operation into action over the past days but communication and other factors have delayed the flight until this afternoon.
KQ has to be commended for their extraordinary effort, to coordinate the rescue mission with the diplomatic representatives in Nairobi and Tripoli of the countries whose citizens are being flown out of Libya today, fully living up to their other name ‘the Pride of Africa’ – hence a big Asante Sana to KQ!
