The travel and hospitality industries are the worst hit by the on-going coronavirus pandemic due to global travel restrictions. This has seen a number of foreign visitors, volunteers and scholars get confined in Kenya and distanced from their home countries. However, as the lock down and travel restrictions take toll day in day out, nostalgia has kicked in and thus great urge to travel back home set in.
In a bid to save their own, foreign governments have organised charter flights from firms such as Kenya Airways and Ethiopian airlines. These in turn are making a kill due to the prevailing conditions. Expatriates in Kenya are paying hooping fees of up to three times normal ticket prices to return to their home countries as airlines provide charter flights for repatriation.
Following the same cause, Kenya Airways this coming Friday will transport passengers to London Heathrow airport from JKIA charging Ksh187,692 ($1,876) for the one-way ticket including testing for Covid-19 at Lancet. Usually, a ticket from Nairobi to London and back before Corona took toll on the transport sector would go for Ksh96,430 ($964) or about Ksh48,215 ($482) one way.
Commenting on why there was such a hike in air ticket prices by Kenya Airways, the company CEO Allan Kilavuka reported that these flights are chartered and under normal operations, the cost is spread out. He added that currently, these flights are concentrated on a specific few routes and there is also the extra cost of protection, cleaning and fumigation.
“We also have to ensure safe passage for crew if there is a layover. All these costs add up and there are no economies of scale,” he pointed out.
Mr Kilavuka added that the return flight would however not ferry any Kenyans back as “some processes are not complete for bringing people back. It is an ongoing process, but we will not bring back Kenyans this time.”
The Kenyan High Commission in the UK last week issued a notice indicating that KQ had given 211 as the minimum number of passengers for whom the flight could be arranged pending confirmation of viability of the flight.
Foreign governments have continued to evacuate their citizens including the European Union which organised a charter flight with Ethiopian Airlines that left for Frankfurt yesterday from Nairobi with the one-way ticket costing Ksh152,818 ($1,528). This would usually be the cost of a return trip during peak season days earlier. The flight had 263 available seats with no option of business or first class, no in-flight entertainment and no discount for children on infants.
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