Kenya Airways was the biggest loser at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday after losing 19.18 percent of its market value. The KQ shares drop came a day after the national carrier announced that it had slumped back into loss making territory in the first six months of the current year.
The carrier made a half year net loss of Sh12.15 billion. At the securities market, this loss left shareholders reeling from losses as the stock touched a day’s low of Sh1.56 per share. At the close of trading, the Kenya Airways shares settled at an average of Sh4 per share. This was a drop of 19.18 percent from the previous day’s average trading price of Sh4.99 per share.
Over the past one year, KQ shares have touched a high of Sh9.18 per share. Yesterday’s low of Sh1.56 per share and the closing average of Sh4 per share were the lowest the counter has touched since it resumed trading at NSE.
The national carrier’s loss in the six months was a sharp about turn from the record profit of Sh5.4 billion that the national carrier posted in the full year 2024, and the net profit of Sh513 million in the first six months of 2024.
In the first half of this year, the total income for the national carrier dropped by 18.6 percent to Sh74.5 billion. Operating loss came in at Sh6.2 billion from the Sh1.3 billion that was reported in the first half of 2024.
At the same time, cash and equivalents went red by 10.8 percent to Sh4.2 billion while net cash from operations were red by 2.6 percent to Sh7.7 billion. Assets increased 0.7 percent to Sh180.4 billion.
Kenya Airways has blamed the loss on its grounded aircraft. According to Kenya Airways chief executive officer Allan Kilavuka, 33 percent of the carrier’s wide-body aircraft was grounded for the first six months of this year. The grounding of the aircraft resulted in a 14 percent drop in passenger numbers and a 19 percent drop in Revenue Passenger Kilometres (RPKs).
READ MORE: How KQ went from historic profit to Sh12b net loss in 6 months of this year
In July this year, Bizna Kenya had reported that the airline was staring at losses following the grounding of the airline’s B787-8 Dreamliners over engine maintenance. At the time, Kilavuka had stated that the airline was expecting reduced revenues for the year.
“We are not happy that the [two KQ B787-8 Dreamliners] are grounded. We have lost 20 percent of our capacity, and that is going to affect our results this year because of the strain on our network,” he had said. “For a relatively small airline like us, losing 20 percent of capacity really us. So we are not able to deliver the amount of capacity that we had last year.”
