Kenya Airways Postpones Resumption Of New York Flights

Kenya Airways announced that they had postponed the New York flight’s resumption. According to Kenya Airways, through a notice, the airline said the decision to postponed the flights was informed by the increased cancellation of flight bookings to New York.

It also said that this week’s elections in the US and striker covid-19 measures on arriving passengers from overseas forced Kenya Airways to postpone the resumption of the New York flight.

“We regret to announce that due to increased cancellations of flight bookings to New York City, we have pushed back the resumption of our service to this destination to November 29^th. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused”. Read the statement.

Kenya Airways was to resume New York flights last Saturday but canceled at the last minute following a management meeting on Friday after the route witnessed huge cancellation.

New York is among the top four states with high cases of Covid-19 in the US has recorded 514,000 cases so far with the highest number of deaths across the whole country at 33,000

According to Kenya Airways, passengers traveling from other countries would be required to undergo three-day quarantine to prove they are negative for the virus before they are allowed into the US.

The national carrier last operated the passenger flights using the route in April after disruptions by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Kenya Airways resumed international flights in August after suspending all its operations in March following the government’s directives on coronavirus.

Kenya Airways Chief Executive Officer Allan Kilavuka, before the cancellation, had said the carrier had recorded a 40 percent cabin factor load in early bookings for the first trip to the US. Affected passengers have been booked to other airlines.

KQ had forecast its daily direct flights to the US, which it launched in October 2018, would boost annual revenues by more than 10 percent in 2019 and 2020.

KQ inaugurated direct flights to the US in October 2018, cutting the journey to 15 hours. In October 2019, Kenya Airways flew at least 105,084 passengers after completing 549 flights to and from New York.