Regional low-cost carrier, Jambojet will operate 75 weekly flights to the coastal routes during the August holiday season. This is after announcing an increase in its frequencies to the towns of Mombasa, Ukunda and Malindi in a bid to maximise on the human traffic expected.
The airline, which was recently awarded the coveted IATA Operational Safety Audit registration, will operate 48 weekly flights to Mombasa up from the current 40. Ukunda and Malindi will have three additional weekly flights moving the frequency to twice daily.
Jambojet CEO, Mr. Allan Kilavuka said, āAugust is a peak season, which means increased numbers of passengers are flying to our various coastal destinations. We are responding to our customersā demands for these additional frequencies in line with our core promise of providing convenience, safety and reliability in our operations. The increased number of flights will offer our customers even more flexibility and flight variety to travel to these destinationsā.
The additional frequencies will see the airline offer an extra 23% seat capacity to the Coastal destinations. Kisumu, Eldoret and Entebbe will retain at 21, 20 and 10 weekly flights respectively.
The Kenyan carrier is looking to beat its competitors plying the same route even as the airline faces financial blows as a result of debt and losses. As JamboJet strives to be the leading regional low cost-carrier, these efforts come amid nationalisation of Kenya Airways that was privatised 23 years ago. In order to bring it back to financial uprightness, lawmakers voted to re-nationalise it in a process that may take up to 21 months.
The process will include buying out minority shareholders and converting shares held by banks into Treasury bonds. The Kenyan government currently owns 48.9% and 7.8% is owned by France’s KLM.
Once liberated, the holding company will have four subsidiaries comprising the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA), Kenya Airways (KQ), the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) and a centralised Aviation Services College, which will run independently.