Kenya Airways’ Loss Widens to 7.59 Billion Shillings

Hopes of having Kenya Airways back into the profit-making circle seem to remain an illusion after the vibrant Pride of Africa registered a pretax loss of 7.59 billion shillings for the 2018 financial year.

The current loss is higher than what was registered in 2017 at the same period at 6.4 billion shillings. The airline has attributed the rising loss to a surge in operating costs.

Kenya Airways has been going through a financial turmoil with its efforts to take over the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) to help leverage its financial presence being rejected.

During the year under review, revenue grew by 41.3 percent on a year-to-year basis to 114.2 million shillings as a result of the increased number of passengers by 41.1 percent to 48.4 million.

The airline says it witnessed an increase in cargo revenue by 52.3 percent on a year-to-year basis to 8.68 billion shillings boosted by an uptick in total revenue.

The operating costs went up by 44.0 percent to 114.8 million shillings mainly from increased fuel costs by 73.6 percent to 33.0 billion shillings.

Kenya Airways has also attributed its massive loss to the fleet ownership costs that shot up by 51.2 percent to 18.9 billion shillings.