Kenya Airways (KQ) has announced sweeping changes to its Summer Schedule, suspending several routes most
notably Rome (Italy), and Muscat (Oman) due to low uptake, whilst announcing new destinations
that are to be launched between July and October 2012 including Kilimanjaro
(Tanzania), Eldoret (Kenya), Abuja (Nigeria) and Beirut
(Lebanon).
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| Kenya Airways Route Map |
The optimized
schedule comes as the airline moves to increase frequencies on existing
routes to meet changing and growing demand, while opening new routes in
Africa and the Middle East. Kenya Airways Group Managing Director, Dr.
Titus Naikuni said the decision to halt operations on the routes was
also based on insufficient demand to sustain the routes.
"“Owing to the
decreased passenger volumes on these routes, we have decided to re-align
our capacity across the entire network to meet growing demand on other
destinations including new ones,” said Dr Naikuni."
Kenya Airways' Summer 2012 Schedule
Kenya (Domestic)
- Kisumu City boosted with introduction of an extra frequency over the weekends bringing it to 4x daily. On specific weekdays the airline will maintain its 3x daily flights. An Embraer E190 will be deployed on the route especially in the mornings and evenings.
Africa
- All Lagos daytime flights to Accra are combined as KQ 534 operating Nairobi –
Lagos – Accra – Nairobi. As a result, Kenya Airways will be flying into
Accra 12 times a week and 9 times a week to Lagos.
- Additionally, the
introduction of wide-body capacity into and out of Lagos and Accra is
set to have significant impact on Kenya Airways’ passenger and cargo
revenue streams as it will enable it to offer more capacity and minimum
connecting time between Guangzhou, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Dubai, Mumbai and
West Africa.
- Ndjamena increased to 3x direct flights a
week.
- Dakar will now connect through Ouagadougou which increases flights to OUA to 3 times a week.
- Bamako flights will operate
via Cotonou 3 times a week; this is expected to ease out on the payload
issues that the Bamako passengers have experienced in the past.
Middle East & Asia
- Mumbai, India is increased from daily to 10
flights a week with 3x weekly flights to Delhi.
- Jeddah, Saudi Arabia has an extra flight added, bringing the frequency to 3x weekly effective July 2012.
- New direct flight to Dubai which
will operate 3x a week with late evening departures from Jomo
Kenyatta International Airport to capture the late connecting traffic
arriving into Nairobi. This is in addition to the daily Dubai service
that the airline operates. The airline will now operate 10 non-stop
flights to Dubai.
Europe
- Europe has
a capacity increase despite the suspension of Rome flights.
- Effective
July 2012, flights to London Heathrow will increase to 10 flights per
week on the 322 seater Boeing 777-200. This is to cater for increased traffic demand during the Olympics.
- Paris flights will increase to 6
weekly flights during the July – August peak period and the daily
Amsterdam capacity will be upgraded to a Boeing 777-200.
Etihad's “EY” code appearing on Kenya Airways’ selected
service to Gaborone, Botswana as well as various East African cities. In return, Kenya’s
“KQ” code is now appearing on selected ETIHAD’s Middle East Service.
