The cost of keeping Kenya Airways Boeing 787 Dreamliners airworthy runs into billions of shillings. This has been revealed by Kenya Airways chief executive officer Allan Kilavuka. According to Kilavuka, the national carrier currently owns nine Dreamliners.
Each of these KQ Dreamliners has two engines that at some point require a general overhaul. According to Kilavuka, the cost of overhauling a single GEnx engine – which is the engine KQ Dreamliners run on – is around Sh1.9 billion. This the places the cost of two engines maintenance in a single plane at Sh3.8 billion.
“Overhauling a single GEnx engine costs about Sh1.9 billion. Each Dreamliner has two engines. [This means that] engine maintenance alone totals more than Sh34 billion over time,” said Kilavuka.
“Safety requirements mean aircraft must be updated or replaced on strict timelines, regardless of whether the cost has been fully recovered.”
Mr. Kilavuka made the sentiments as concerns mount over the grounding of three KQ Dreamliners over maintenance issues.
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).
The grounding of the aircraft has been blamed as a major reason why the airline reported massive losses in the first six months of the current 2025 year.
The national carrier’s loss of Sh12.15 billion 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. 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.
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Apart from maintenance costs, Mr. Kilavuka said that expanding a carrier’s fleet through purchase of new aircraft is not as easy a task as many would assume, especially when the aircraft is a widebody.
For instance, said Kilavuka, acquiring a brand new Boeing 787 Dreamliner costs around Sh32 billion. With the 9 Dreamliners owned by the national carrier, this implies that KQ has invested around Sh288 billion into the planes, before maintenance costs are factored.
