The Standard: A senior Kenya Airways official has compared the airline’s return per passenger to what hoteliers make on a cup of coffee.
Speaking at last week’s annual African Business Travel Association (ABTA) forum, attended by a cross section of players in the travel industry, Regional General Manager for Kenya Airways, Dirk Buitelaar said: “We do not make any more money per passenger than a cup of coffee — and it is not a good cup of coffee.”
He attributed this to the “super expensive” cost of airline operations, especially on the African continent. “If I fly from Nairobi to South Africa, I fly over seven countries,” he said, and pays a cost for flying over each foreign air space.
Kenya Airways also have to pay for flight control in these countries, as well as for using navigation aids, Mr Buitelaar added. “And airports open at night [so] I pay for that electricity,” he said. “If my son came and said he is working in the airline industry, I would shoot him,” Buitelaar joked, before adding that people need to be sensitised on such expenses to understand the difficult environment Kenya Airways operates in.
According to Buitelaar, this means if Kenya Airways carries 400 passengers in one of its planes, it makes an average Sh250 in profit on each passenger, which adds up to just Sh100,000 one way. Kenya Airways has in recent times been struggling with huge debt burden, amounting to Sh77.8 billion as at September last year.
This amount comprises short-term loans, cash owed to suppliers and pre-payments due in advance of carriage. Kenya Airways made a loss of Sh12.5 billion in the six months to September 2014; the first half of its current financial year.
