Kenya Airways Sells off Two Planes to US Carrier

The national career, Kenya Airways has entered into an agreement with Omni Air International, a carrier based in the United States, to sell them two aircraft.

Kenya Airways has decided to sell its two Boeing planes; Boeing 777-200 ER in what is expected to be a turnaround strategy.

This came on Wednesday after the airline announced that the decision had been approved by the board of management to release the aircrafts.

During the financial year that ended March last year, 2015, Kenya Airways posted a loss of 25.7 billion shillings, setting a recorded as the first government owned institution to have ever posted such a huge loss.

The government which is a major shareholder into the airline had offered to bail the company out but the career is yet to emerge out of the woods.

During the last Annual General Meeting, shareholder stormed out of the meeting blaming the top management of taking them in circles concerning the tribulations of the airline.

As part of a turnaround strategy, Kenya Airways made some changes among its top management and the sale of the planes in order to harmonize its fleet is part of it.

The sale was supposed to be effected in 2014 but the pilots of the troubled airline moved to court and brought the process to a halt arguing that the sale will leave them with no job.

The decision has now been reached and the two aircrafts will leave the country for the United States in the next two months after the airline completes their exit preparation with the first one scheduled for delivery later this month. This is according to the disclosure from Kenya Airways.

The two planes are still new for they were delivered to Kenya Airways between 2004 and 2007 but many shareholders were against the idea of the airline having so many planes with little coming out of them.

Some quarters have also blamed Kenya Airways for selling their tickets more expensive than their competitors such as the Ethiopian Airline.

Article by Juma Fred.