Kenya in talks with Delta Airlines to save its struggling national carrier

Kenyan president William Ruto is looking for a deal between Kenya Airways and Delta Air Lines to turn around the fortunes of the country’s national carrier which last recorded profits 10 years ago.

During the Washington US-Africa Business Summit, one of Ruto’s major goals was to get investors to help the struggling Kenya Airways. The president identified a potential investor in Delta Air Lines, holding discussions with the carrier’s executive vice president for external affairs Peter Carter “on building partnerships to make both airlines competitive and attractive.”

After it made net earnings of $15 million in 2012, Kenya Airways has since been a loss-making airline, sinking deeper into financial turbulence with a net loss of $82.4 million in the half year to June 2022. The airline’s early woes were blamed on mismanagement and poor investment decisions.

More recently, similar to other airlines, Kenya airways’ business was contracted by the 2020 and 2021 global Covid-19 lockdowns and travel restrictions, and has since been unable to recover. Tax payers have been consistently bailing out the airline but its books remain in total disarray, with total revenue slumping by 58.9% to $481 million while accumulated losses rose to $585 million in 2021. It is such figures that made Ruto pitch to Delta Air Lines, world’s second largest airline with over 870 aircrafts and 5,400 daily flights, about a possible capital injection into Kenya Airways in an attempt to save the airline in his first year in office.

Delta projects its revenue will grow two-fold from $2 billion to $4 billion in 2023. “We are doing everything possible to ensure that we no longer subsidize the airline and that is why we are looking for a strategic partner,” says Kenya’s Transport minister Kipchumba Murkomen.