(Posted 13th August 2025)
Turkish Airlines, a member of StarAlliance, will finally be able to resume flights to Mombasa, commencing on October 26th this year.
Initially operating three flights per week – and reportedly limited to only 150 seats maximum – does this nevertheless vastly improve Mombasa’s international connectivity at a time when Kenya aims to massively increase tourist arrivals.
Prior to the COVID19 pandemic, when global air traffic came largely to a standstill due to the – in retrospect senseless and entirely useless border closures – did Turkish operate flights into Mombasa via other East African waypoints.
Turkish Airlines is incidentally the airline with the most countries served worldwide out of their hub in Istanbul, giving unprecedented access for travelers from around the world to fly to Mombasa.
Other airlines, especially holiday charter airlines, too have found it very difficult to get licenses to operate flights into Mombasa and many times has the competence of the licensing board members been questioned and challenged, though of late some denials were overturned on appeal such as TUI Airlines’ holiday charter flights from Amsterdam which were given a temporary license.
Still waiting for an opening to fly – due to runway length – one of their turboprop aircraft to Malindi is Ethiopian Airlines, which would immensely boost traffic to Malindi and Watamu from across the global ET network, but here – like has been the case for scheduled flights to Mombasa for a long time – does the door remain closed to the detriment of the tourism and hospitality sector.
