Kenya Airways changes route network for winter schedule

Kenya Airways on Friday announced its 2016 winter schedule that will see changes to the route network as well as frequencies to suit customer needs in various destinations during the season.

The airline's CEO Mbuvi Ngunze said in a statement that the airline will increase its flight frequencies to the recently launched South Africa's Cape Town route via Livingston in Zimbabwe from the current three to four per week, and eventually to six times per week around Christmas to meet demand.

He said the airline will also increase its frequencies in East Africa with a new midday flight to Kigali (Rwanda) and Bujumbura (Burundi), making it 25 flights per week.

In addition, Kenya Airways will add night flights to Comoros and Madagascar in a bid to offer reliable connectivity to these Indian Ocean destinations.

As part of its network restructuring, flights to Abuja in Nigeria, and Gaborone, Botswana, will be suspended as offline destinations effective from Nov. 15.

"We have made changes to our flight schedule with the aim of strengthening our network in Africa, and more importantly, optimizing our services to selected destinations in response to passenger demands," Ngunze said.

"We are constantly relooking at our schedule to ensure we offer our guest reliable connectivity through our hub, Nairobi," he added.

Africa accounts for 60 percent of the airline's turnover for the year ending March 2016.

Out of Africa, the airline said India's Mumbai and UAE's Dubai will both go to full double daily flights, increasing the frequency to these destinations to 14 per week.

The network in Europe and Asia will remain unchanged, and all destinations in Europe and Far East are served by the B787 Dreamliner.

The winter schedule comes into effect from Oct. 30. Endit