Originally planned to go ahead from 1 October via Nairobi, Belgian carrier, Brussels Airlines (SN), has announced it will not be launching once weekly flights to the Kenyan port town of Mombasa "due to administrative reasons". |
| A Brussels Airlines A330-300 |
In its place, the carrier announced that, from "the end of October," it would increase its Brussels - Kigali, Rwanda frequency to 4x weekly (subject to Government approval), after this was previously announced to have dropped to 3x weekly, in July.
Source [Brussels Airlines]"On the African continent Brussels Airlines will increase its flight frequency to Kigali (Rwanda) subject to government approval. The East African destination will be served 4 times instead of 3 times a week starting end of October. The previously announced launch of a scheduled service to Mombasa (Kenya) has been cancelled because of administrative reasons."
Brussels Airlines' axing of the route before it has even been operated due to "administrative reasons" bears similarities to Qatar Airways (QR) who, in August, cancelled their planned Mombasa - Dar es Salaam, Tanzania prior to its operation. Overall, this development is more bad news for the aviation and tourism industry in Mombasa as previously, South African LCC 1Time (T6) announced their suspension of their Johannesburg - Mombasa routing effective 16 September, while German carrier Air Berlin (AB) will drop their Munich - Mombasa route from April 2013.