Safarilink Aviation (XLK), the Kenyan regional airline based at Nairobi's Wilson Airport, has announced that from 15 June, owing to lengthy delays in the issuance of visas at Nairobi Wilson Airport, it will only guarantee a connection on its Kilimanjaro - Masai Mara service to arriving passengers who already have a valid visa in their passports.
SafariLink, in a statement said that since the immigration facility at Wilson Airport is unable to expeditiously issue visas to incoming passengers from Kilimanjaro, they had been experiencing considerable delays to their afternoon scheduled service to the Masai Mara.
“All our services are geared to maximise inter-connectivity of our services and as we are predominantly an airline providing services to the main tourist destinations, we run a tight connection schedule. Our area of concern is that our Kilimanjaro to Wilson flight is scheduled to arrive at 14h40, and we usually have clients doing a combined Tanzania and Kenya safari connecting to our afternoon Mara service scheduled to depart at 15h15.
Safarlink Cessna 208B (SafariLink)
The problem arises when we have several passengers who need to clear immigration but there is only one immigration clerk when there should be two or three,” said Anu Vohora, Sales and Marketing Director of Safarilink.
As a result, there had been knock-on delays to passengers waiting to be picked up from airstrips in the Masai Mara.
The airline said copies of visas would be required seven days prior to departure.
