Kenya Airways staring at losses as two B787-8 Dreamliners remain grounded

Kenya Airways is currently experiencing reduced operational capacity of up to 20 percent. This has been attributed to the grounding of two KQ B787-8 Dreamliners over engine maintenance.

This has been revealed by the national carrier’s chief executive officer Allan Kilavuka. According to Kilavuka, the airline is expecting reduced revenues for the year that is expected to conclude in December 2025.

“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 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.”

The two engines of the two aircrafts are expected to undergo an overhaul which is typically required every five years or after 3,000 flight cycles. According to Kenya Airways chief operations officer George Kamal the maintenance process usually takes 70 to 90 days. However, it is currently stretching all the way to 120 days due to increased demand for overhaul services globally.

“We have booked slots at General Electric Aerospace. However, the turnaround times, which increased significantly due to the supply chain, has really hurt all the airlines including Kenya Airways,” he said.

This will be the second year in a row that the national carrier is coming out to lament over disruptions cause by grounding of its aircraft.

In May 2024, KQ blamed the grounding of two of its 787 Dreamliners for the flight schedule disruptions it is experiencing. At the time, KQ stated that the two 787 Dreamliners had been grounded due to delayed engine and engine components delivery.

“We would like to inform our customers that we are experiencing some disruptions in our flight schedules, which are leading to abnormally high levels of delays. The main reason for these disruptions is the unscheduled and extended grounding of two of our 787 Dreamliners,” the national carrier stated. The airline had further attributed disruptions on what it termed as unavailability of flight crew.

With the airline announcing that it is expecting its results for this year to be impacted, it now remains to be seen how far-reaching the impact will be.

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In the previous 2024 financial year ended December 31, 2024, the airline had announced a full year net profit of Sh5.4 billion. This marked the first full year net profit for the national carrier in 11 years.

Revenues for the national carrier increased by 6 percent to Sh188.5 billion in 2024 In the 2023year, KQ had realized revenues of Sh178.5 billion which had been a 53 percent improvement on the revenue posted in the 2022 financial year.

At the same time, passenger numbers in the 2024 year had grown by 4 percent to 5.23 million while cargo volumes went up by 25 percent to stand at 70,776 tonnes.