Turkish Airlines will restart South Africa, Russia, Kuwait, and India services this month, according to transportation minister Adil Karaismailoglu.

Other destinations to be added include Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Kyrgyzstan, Iraq, Kenya, and Uzbekistan, depending on the severity of the coronavirus pandemic.

The country is planning to boost the number of international flights to more than 40 countries.

Both Turkey and Russia last week announced that reciprocal flights would resume on August 1 after a four-month break. Initially, flights will restart between three Russian airports and Turkish airports in Istanbul and Ankara.

“Scheduled and charter flights from Moscow, St. Petersburg and Rostov-on-Don in Russia to Antalya, Bodrum and Dalaman in Turkey will also restart on August 10,” he added.

Turkish Airlines is in talks with Russian authorities to fly from Kazan and Sochi as well, as per media reports.

After attracting a record number of visitors with 51.9 million people in 2019, Turkey was targeting a total of 60 million tourists in 2020 before the coronavirus crisis. The country’s tourism revenues hit $34.5 billion in 2019, a new record high.

However, Turkey welcomed 4.5 million foreign visitors in the first half of 2020, down 75 percent year-on-year, according to the data from culture and tourism ministry.

Turkey has resumed international flights to four countries, including India, from August 1, the country’s Transport and Infrastructure Minister Adil Karaismailoglu announced in a written statement this week. The other countries are Russia, Kuwait and South Africa. In the pipeline are plans to restart flight operations with Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Kyrgyzstan, Iraq, Kenya and Uzbekistan.

International flight operations in Turkey were suspended on July 11.

Source: https://www.logupdateafrica.com/turkish-airlines-to-restore-south-africa-kenya-egypt-routes-in-august-aviation

 

Qatar Airways announces the resumption of services to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (NBO) – Nairobi, Kenya with 14 weekly flights and to Kigali International Airport (KGL) – Kigali, Rwanda with three weekly flights. With the addition of Kigali and Nairobi, the airline now operates 33 weekly flights to eight destinations in Africa including Addis Ababa, Dar es Salaam, Djibouti, Kilimanjaro, Zanzibar and Tunis.

Being one of the largest passenger carriers during the pandemic with a promised steady schedule that never dropped below 30 destinations, the national carrier to the State of Qatar connects many passengers seamlessly via its award-winning home and hub, Hamad International Airport (HIA) to key destinations via its rapidly expanding network including Europe, Americas, Asia and Pacific via Doha.

Qatar Airways has a strong relationship with Kenya and Rwanda with almost 15 years of operations to Nairobi and eight years of operations to Kigali. The airline began scheduled services from Nairobi on 15 November 2005 followed by Kigali on 24 March 2012 and Mombasa on 9 December 2018.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive Mr Akbar Al Baker said: “We are delighted to resume flights to Nairobi and Kigali, totalling our flights to 33 weekly flights into Africa with eight destinations. Qatar Airways continues to maintain an expanding schedule with now more than 500 weekly flights to over 75 destinations. During the pandemic, Qatar Airways have become the largest global carrier to maintain its schedule in taking people home with the highest safety measures. Our wide network of flights during these challenging times has ensured we have kept up to date with the latest in international airport procedures. We also implemented the most advanced safety & hygiene measures onboard our aircraft and, in our home, and hub at Hamad International Airport which was recently voted the Best Airport in the Middle East for the sixth year in a row.

“Qatar Airways has been the most reliable airline during the pandemic and will continue to ensure its promised five-star service and hospitality is delivered across its network. We hope to see many people come visit Kenya and Rwanda and explore the world’s stunning wildlife and more.”

During COVID-19 pandemic, Qatar Airways Cargo continued operating its scheduled twice-weekly with A330 freighters and four times weekly with Boeing 777 freighters to Nairobi along with freight charters. These flights provided much-required capacity, supporting exporters and importers and bringing in essential medical supplies. With the resumption of passenger flights to Nairobi, the cargo carrier will operate 20 flights in total, offering more than 700 tonnes of cargo capacity each week, each way.

Qatar Airways has further enhanced its onboard safety measures for passengers and cabin crew. The airline has introduced Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for cabin crew which includes gloves, face masks, safety glasses and a new protective gown that is fitted over their uniforms. A modified service that reduces interactions between passengers and the crew inflight has also been introduced.

Onboard, all Qatar Airways passengers are now provided with a complimentary protective kit. Inside a ziplock pouch, they will find a single-use surgical face mask, large disposable powder-free gloves and an alcohol-based hand sanitiser gel. The airline has also introduced disposable face shields for adults and children. Passengers travelling from Hamad International Airport (HIA) will receive their face shields at the check-in counters, whereas at other destinations, the face shields will be distributed at the boarding gates.

To ensure travellers can plan their travel with peace of mind, the airline has extended its booking policies to offer even more choice to its passengers. The airline will allow unlimited date changes, and passengers can change their destination as often as they need if it is within 5,000 miles of the original destination. The airline will not charge any fare differences for travel completed before 31 December 2020, after which fare rules will apply. All tickets booked for travel up to 31 December 2020 will be valid for two years from the date of issuance. For full terms and conditions visit www.qatarairways.com/RelyOnUs.

Source: https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/qatar-airways/qatar-airways-resumes-flights-to-kigali-rwanda-and-nairobi-kenya/

 

National carrier Kenya Airways has resumed domestic and international flights after being grounded for almost four months.

Martin Mwita spoke to KQ chairman Michael Joseph on the resumption, challenges, nationalisation and the future of the airline.

The Star: How does it feel to be back in the skies?

Michael Joseph: It is wonderful, we need to fly. There are two reasons why we need to fly. One is obviously revenue. When a plane sits on the ground and does nothing, it costs a lot of money because it requires to be maintained even if it does not fly. The other thing is we need to restore the confidence in Kenya Airways to have KQ survive so it can provide the strategic services we need.

Nairobi is the natural place to put your headquarters for Africa, the natural place to invest. Kenya Airways will provide the connectivity needed to encourage people to put their investment here. If you look at Dubai, years ago it was nothing. Look at it to today and the only reason why Dubai is the way it is is because of Emirates. In Rwanda, President Kagame is putting a lot of money into RwandAir and the airport, so we need to do everything for Kenya Airways to survive. 

After resuming domestic flights and now international, how is KQ doing?

It is difficult to say. We are flying two times a day to Mombasa, once to Kisumu, the average load factor is 60 per cent, it’s not great. But we have to get confidence during this pandemic because many people are afraid to fly, even on other international airlines. It is a wait-and-see what will be the load factor.

What is your resumption plan for international flights?

Right now, we are going to fly to London three or four times a week, Amsterdam, Paris three times a week. When we go back to New York, we will probably fly once a week, Guangzhou maybe twice a week, we won’t go daily. We will manage and monitor to see what the load factor is like.

What informed the choice on routes?

Projected demand. It is complex when you structure a route. For example, when you fly from here (Nairobi) to Mumbai, probably it doesn’t justify the cost of that flight, but people might be coming from Lagos and then going to Mumbai and that justifies the cost of the flight. It is a very complex thing when we try to project future bookings.

We have, however, started taking bookings, so we are trying to see the load. As it increases, we shall put on more flights. Coming from Europe, there should be a good number of people coming here for the migration, Christmas season and like that. Then for New York during winter, we will see people wanting to come. We have gotten some good bookings from November, but we have to project and see what the future demand looks like based on forward bookings.

How do you give people confidence they will not catch Covid-19 on a KQ plane?

 

You do the best you can. We have very special efforts to ensure safety on the plane, including specialised air filters. People must wear masks all the time and crew will be in PPEs, among other measures.

When do you expect to resume direct flights between Nairobi and New York?

We are looking at October. I think we will go once a week and then we will start to build up. If we see the demand, we will go two times or three times a week. I don’t know when we will go back to daily flights to the US because of the pandemic.

There are concerns that KQ risks being short of pilots due to redundancy. What is your take?

Right now, there is no shortage of pilots for sure. There will probably be no shortage of pilots until the industry picks up. No airline economist is predicting the return to 2019 levels until 2023 at the earliest.

How prepared are you to resume flights? There is a concern that most of those sent home are those who had taken recurrent training.

First of all, no pilot has been sent home except maybe those who were on probation. On readiness, the way the regulations work, all the aircrafts are fully maintained even if they are on the ground. Secondly, we have been doing a lot of evacuation and freight flights, so most of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Boeing 737 pilots are flying freight or evacuation flights, so we are good to go.

 

How do you plan to deal with grounded planes, looking at cost factor and leases?

That’s a good question. What most airlines around the world are doing is returning aircrafts on leaseholds. To return an aircraft costs loads of money, the money we don’t have. We have to look for some deal. It can’t be the normal penalties that they levy when you return an aircraft before your lease expires. We have to negotiate so they don’t levy penalties now, we will commit to a working plan.

Some aircraft, we can just keep because it won’t cost us anything. We are going to go down from 38 aircraft to 24 aircraft. We will try to do something with the balance of our aircraft, maybe we will return them or do something else. We have nine 787s (Boeing). We will probably not return any one of them, but we will park them and use them as backup, but we have to manage this process so we can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Management has been criticized on layoffs at a time when nationalization is coming and expected to create jobs.

Criticism will be there when you lay off people. Nobody wants to be laid off and nobody wants to do layoffs. It is really tough to let people go. Everybody can criticize you, but what do you do? Things are difficult for airlines across the globe and KQ is not an exception.

How are you doing the layoffs?

What we have said is for people who are on contract, we don’t renew their contracts, and that is not unusual in contracts. People who are close to retirement, like some of our pilots are approaching the retirement age when they are not allowed to fly, we say if you have two years to go, we will give you your salary and offer you early retirement. There are people we took from third-party providers, some on probation. We have to do it.

How far will the redundancy process go and how many will be affected?

We will finish by the end of September as long as we don’t have another pandemic or obstacles. We are 4,300 people in Kenya Airways at the moment. I don’t know what the eventual number will be, but it is difficult. It is a tough thing to do. 

KQ is going back into nationalization, something that has failed before. How differently can it be done to get it right?

Good question. If I look at Kenya Airways before, we were competing with Middle East carriers, which are owned and subsidized by the state. Same for Ethiopian Airlines. They run the airports, catering, duty free, all these are in one holding company. That ability to put these three or four things together makes you very strong, and that is what I am trying to do with Kenya Airways.

Our idea is to emulate what Ethiopian Airlines has done, what Emirates has done, what Turkish Airlines has done, Qatar, you name it. Integrate airport, duty free and other services. If you look at JKIA, duty free is making a lot of money, ground handling is making a lot of money, if I put those two things together and put those balance sheets together, we can leverage the balance sheet not only to rebuild the airport but also to expand the airline. That is the reason why we are doing it and we can only do it by putting them into one holding company that is owned by the state.

How do you plan to deal with shareholders in the nationalisation process?

The government currently owns nearly 50 per cent of Kenya Airways, 38 per cent is owned by the banks and seven per cent is owned by KLM. Minority shareholders own the balance. In the current financial year, we have put out some money for buying out the minority shareholders, individual shareholders; these are the people who bought shares in Kenya Airways. We have no money to buy out the banks and KLM, but our intention is to give them some kind of arrangement, that they will get their money in the next five to eight years.

Any fears on nationalisation?

Look at SAA (South African Airways), it was doing very well until the government started interfering with the running of the airline and putting people in charge who knew nothing about the airline. They used the airline and they ran it down. This is the fear we have and a legitimate fear. If we nationalise Kenya Airways and we put in into this aviation-holding corporation, it is state-owned. We could run it down or grow, but if you look at the Aviation Bill, we have some safeguards in there to try and prevent that.

How best can KQ stand competition from other airlines?

First is by reducing our operating cost. We cannot compete with, say, Ethiopian Airlines and these other guys on a level playing ground because our cost of operation is high. Our average cost per kilometre, for example, compared to Ethiopian Airlines is much higher. It costs less money to fly to London by Ethiopian. Their pilots are paid 50 per cent of what our pilots are paid, the fuel is subsidised, we pay railway tax on our fuel and so forth.

Becoming a state corporation, I am hoping that we can bring down the cost of operation. Even if we cannot bring down the cost of salaries, we can start to look at other costs and then  leverage the balance sheet.

Pilots have argued that if they are brought on board, you could actually expand the airline.

It has been their mantra since I have been there. They say ‘we could do a better job than you guys’, but has any of them applied for the job of the CEO or chief commercial officer? I would love them to come to the board or to send a representative to the board to really understand our business.

This is a standard language they use because that is what the international pilots’ association tells them to say as union officials on how to deal with management. There are some good things they have said, like making Nairobi a business hub, absolutely 100 per cent, I agree. But when we have nobody flying, no possibility of restoration of the normal number of passengers by 2024, you want to expand? With what? How are you going to meet the costs? We can’t even pay salaries.

You have been accused of using British Airways, a competitor, to fly on routes when you could use KQ at a cheaper cost.

When I joined the board, we were in the middle of a financial restructuring. We hired Mckinsey and other financial consultants, and we were going into restructuring of the debt of Kenya Airways. That required a lot of consultation. I was still living and working in London and I had to come here a couple of times for meetings. I could only come for a day so I would take a Kenya Airways flight at around 5 from Heathrow, come for the meeting and then go back with British Airways. That is the only way you can come for a day, come with KQ and go back with BA, and vice versa.

I answered the audit questions about why did you fly with British Airways. It is just a normal business trip but the union took it as if I am spending thousands travelling with BA. Again when you fly with KQ for free, it is on availability basis, so when it is full, you can’t fly. You can’t leave a fee-paying passenger and fly the chairman for free. When there was no seat in KQ, I flew British Airways and there were arrangements for cheaper tickets.

Former CEO Sebastian Mikosz and yourself were accused of increasing your salaries without approval. Can you explain?

When I became the chairman, I said to the minister look, this is going to take a lot of my time because a lot needed to be done. So I said, I need to be paid more. KQ was going through a financial restructuring, we had just hired a new CEO, we also had to decide what are we going to do with the airline.

When we went through the Public-Private-Partnership proposal, it became very intense and I was spending a lot of time with Kenya Airways. It’s about the amount of effort that I had to devote to Kenya Airways as a person, not as a chairman who appears only four times a year. So I was paid not a sitting allowance but a fee. It was agreed and the following year the finance people accrued for that amount. It was shown in the balance sheet as salary paid to me.

However, the board never approved it, so it had had to be reversed. I paid that money back. Currently, none of us is being paid since the pandemic. I haven’t been paid since February, the CEO has taken a pay cut because we volunteered to help address the situation. I have never been dishonest. I am not that kind of person. I am very proud of my reputation.

When do you think a nationalised KQ will return to profitability, and can it be privatised again?

This is a difficult question to answer. My view is in three or four years’ time, we will be profitable if we go through what we are doing now and things work out as we predict. To re-privatise would depend on how the world looks like. But in my view, we have to get back our market share, we have to fight for our market share. Ethiopian Airlines has a grand design to be Africa’s airline. It’s not going to be easy, but we have to fight.

Do you feel KQ is getting enough support from the government?

Yes, and particularly from the President. We are getting good support. I can’t wish for better.

How have you addressed the safety alert on your Boeing 737s issued by the US Federal Aviation Authority?

There is a safety alert almost every day. This is not the first alert on the 737s. We always take the safety alerts seriously and we do what we are required to do. This happens all the time. We check our planes regularly so it’s not an issue. Safety is always number one in an airline and KQ is no exception.

How do you compare leading KQ and leading Safaricom?

Different challenges. One is an extremely profitable company, easy to run and one is not. When you don’t have money, it is very difficult. Even to become successful, you need money. If we (KQ) are going to compete, we have to offer better service, better in-flight service, better meals, better uniform, better seats, all these will cost money.

Parting shot?

I took up this job because I believe Kenya Airways is a strategic asset of this country. As a standalone business, we are too small to compete, we have 38 aircraft, Ethiopian has 120. It’s the national thing that we have to do. It’s not about pride, it’s something we have to do, we have to put Nairobi on the map.

Nobody wants to fly to a destination via other airports, they want to fly directly. An airline is one thing that will attract people to come here. The government has set up an office to attract businesses, we have to have the same objective. We should protect KQ and make it work. 

Source: https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/big-read/2020-08-04-kqs-survival-strategy-as-global-travel-resumes/

Forward hotel bookings for August to October have shown a rebound from the lows recorded since April, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has said, indicating a change of fortunes for the sector that has been one of the hardest hit by the Covid-19 economic disruption.

The CBK said Thursday that a survey of hotels in the country shows that bookings for August are at seven percent, September (17 percent) and 18 percent in October.

CBK governor Patrick Njoroge said in a post-Monetary Policy Committee meeting briefing that 60 percent of the surveyed hotels expect to be open when international air travel resumes next week as the sector moves to make up for lost revenues that led to lay-offs and salary cuts.

“Key to note is that they are getting forward looking bookings. These bookings, however await confirmations and depend on the re-opening of international travel,” said Dr Njoroge.

“It is important though that they are getting forward bookings, at least it is the beginning of a recovery in the hotel sector.”

He added that some hoteliers said their forward bookings for September and October will hit a high of 56 percent on the return of local and foreign tourists.

International flights will resume August 1, just weeks after return of local travel after President Uhuru Kenyatta eased the restrictions enforced in March to curb spread of the coronavirus disease.

Hotel occupancy rates in January stood at 44 percent then rose to 51 percent in February before falling to 24 percent in March when most countries banned international flights cutting the flow of tourists into Kenya.

Source: https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/markets/marketnews/Hotel-bookings-pick-up-ahead-of-Aug-1/3815534-5601814-ynfb44z/index.html

 

Kenya has made swift U-turn and added eight countries, including the US, the United Arab Emirates and the UK, to a list of those whose nationals are allowed unrestricted entry after international flights resumed Saturday.

A circular issued by Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) on Friday said citizens of countries on the expanded list of 19 countries will be allowed entry without having to go into forced quarantine.

Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia on Thursday named 11 countries on the safe flights list and did not mention the option of quarantine for those excluded from the roll.

The other additions are European countries such as Italy, Germany, France and the Netherlands, and Qatar in the Middle East.

Tanzania is still missing from the updated list despite Kenya insisting it has settled the diplomatic dispute arising from the earlier one, which prompted Dar es Salaam to ban Kenya Airways from its airports.

“All arriving passengers on international flights whose body temperatures is not above 37.5 degrees Celsius… and have negative PCR-based Covid-19 test carried out within 96 hours before travel and are from countries considered low to medium risk Covid-19 transmission areas shall be exempted from quarantine,” said KCAA director-general Gilbert Kibe in reference to the updated list.

The air transport regulator did not provide reasons behind the revision of the list in less than 24 hours.

Travellers arriving from three states in the US – California, Florida and Texas – will be subjected to the mandatory quarantine of 14 days. The three states all reported large rises in fatalities in recent days, raising new concerns about the severity of the wave of infections that has swept across the populous US sunbelt region.

California, Florida and Texas together account for one-quarter of the total US population.

A total of more than 150,000 Americans have died of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic.

The earlier Kenyan flights list had only China among the top 10 nations that accounted for most of the tourists to Kenya last time, dealing a blow to Kenya’s tourism and Kenya Airways.

Kenya Airways resumed international flights on Saturday, heading to about 30 destinations for the first time since the routes were suspended in March due to the coronavirus.

The carrier, which lost about Sh10 billion in the six months to June, resumed domestic flights in mid-July after the government cleared local air travel.

Africa and Europe, however, accounted for 78.3 per cent of the Sh127.6 billion sales the airline reported in the year to December.

Travellers coming from only five African countries—Uganda, Ethiopia, Morocco, Zimbabwe and Namibia—are exempted from mandatory quarantine.

The exclusion of people from most US states and top European countries from quarantine is likely to boost Kenya’s tourism sector, which lost Sh80 billion, about half of last year’s total, due to the coronavirus crisis.

The sector is one of the leading sources of foreign exchange, earning Sh163.56 billion last year, which had been expected to grow one per cent in 2020.

Tourism contributes 10 per cent of Kenya’s annual economic output and employs over two million people.

The US, Britain, Germany, France and Italy—which were all excluded in the Thursday list—brought in 791, 141 tourists to Kenya last year or 39.5 per cent of the two million travellers.

Source: https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/economy/Kenya-restores-US-Britain-to-safe-flights-list/3946234-5603104-37yn7j/index.html

 

 

As most of the airlines resume international flights this month, it will take at least four more years for the passenger traffic to get back to the pre-Covid level, a year later than what had earlier been projected.

International Air Transport Association (IATA) says in a recently updated global passenger forecast that the recovery in traffic has been slower than expected.

The association says, however that recovery on the short haul is expected to happen faster than the long-haul flights, in what will be a major boost for the domestic market.

“Global passenger traffic (revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) will not return to pre-COVID-19 levels until 2024, a year later than previously projected,” said IATA.

The global passenger numbers (enplanements), the association says, are expected to decline by 55 per cent compared to 2019, worse than the April forecast of 46 per cent.

Kenya Airways resumed domestic flights mid last month with the international ones starting last Saturday.

The carrier has forecasted passenger numbers to remain at half of its capacity for the remainder of the year after the airline resumed international flights to 30 destinations out of its 56 at pre-Covid.

In an interview with Reuters, KQ chief executive officer Allan Kilavuka said 2020 for them is like a lost year because of anticipated low demand, which at some point is as low as 25 per cent.

IATA has attributed the slow recovery of passenger traffic to a number of factors. One is the slow virus containment in the US and other developed nations, which account for the largest share of the air traffic.

Although developed economies outside of the US have been largely successful in containing the spread of the virus, the aviation agency says renewed outbreaks have occurred in these economies, and in China.

“Furthermore, there is little sign of virus containment in many important emerging economies, which in combination with the US, represent around 40 per cent of global air travel markets. Their continued closure, particularly to international travel, is a significant drag on recovery,” the agency said.

Secondly, IATA reckons that corporate travel budgets are expected to be very constrained as companies continue to be under financial pressure even as the economy improves.

In addition, while historically GDP growth and air travel have been highly correlated, the agency says surveys suggest this link has weakened, particularly with regard to business travel, as video conferencing appears to have made significant inroads as a substitute for in-person meetings.

IATA also noted that consumer confidence is weak in the wake of concerns over jobs and fears of contracting the virus, which will further suppress the numbers.

“While pent-up demand exists for visiting friends and relatives and leisure travel, consumer confidence is weak in the face of concerns over job security and rising unemployment, as well as risks of catching Covid-19,” it said.

A survey conducted by IATA on June showed that some 55 per cent of respondents don’t plan to travel in 2020.

IATA says African airlines’ traffic sank 98.1 per cent in June, with little changed from a 98.6per cent demand drop in May. Capacity contracted 84.5per cent, and load factor dived 62.1 per centage points to just 8.9per cent of seats filled, lowest among regions.

The association says scientific advances in fighting Covid-19 including development of a successful vaccine, could allow a faster recovery.

Major international passenger airlines resumed the Nairobi routes last Saturday as Kenya opened up the airspace after the country eased containment measures brought about by Covid-19 pandemic.

The airlines, which include British Airways, KLM, Qatar Airways and Air France have announced resumption of normal services between their regional hubs and Jomo Kenyatta International Airport this August.

These airlines had pulled out of Nairobi late March when Kenya closed its airspace for international passenger flights after the country reported the first case of Coronavirus.

The British carrier, which resumed flights on August 1, will operate four flights weekly on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.

The carrier has cut on frequencies as initially it would have multiple flights in a day.

The Amsterdam based KLM resumed operations on Nairobi route on August 3 with four flights initially having cut its usual frequencies to Nairobi.

The Covid-19 pandemic has depressed the global aviation industry, with African carriers alone expected to lose $6 billion this year in revenue.

Source: https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/corporate/shipping/Why-revival-of-aviation-will-take-longer-than-projected/4003122-5603914-4oybaqz/index.html

 

Emirates rolled out a brand new, state-of-the-art online gateway to serve its travel trade partners around the world.

Tailored for each market, and personalized for each partner to cater to their unique business environment and needs, the Emirates Partners Portal is a one-stop shop for travel industry partners to quickly and securely access the full range of information on Emirates’ latest products, services and policies, and obtain technical support. This dynamic platform reshapes the way Emirates delivers information to their trade partner community.

The portal also offers a range of functions including self-service tools and support, and in-built automation of business processes, all aimed at delivering efficiency for travel partners, as well as providing transparency and clarity on the status of transactions.

Adnan Kazim, Emirates’ Chief Commercial Officer said: “We are delighted to launch our game-changing Emirates Partners Portal to better serve and engage with our travel partners around the world. This is a bespoke platform which is unique in the industry, and it allows us to offer a truly personalised experience based on our partners’ profiles and needs. We invested in listening to our agents and partners, and then we built the Emirates Partner Portal to address their needs whether for information, training or technical support. We are grateful for our partnership with trade communities around the world and are excited to engage and support them through this new platform.

“Through the Emirates Partner Portal, backed by the expert support of our commercial teams around the world, we aim to offer unmatched flexibility and empower our travel partners so that they can confidently provide even better services to their customers, and help them to fly better with Emirates. This launch comes at an especially critical in our industry, where the need for the most up-to-date travel information is an essential business enabler.”

The portal has been built on the latest technology, on NDC/IATA standards, that will provide access to Emirates’ rich content, in addition to critical operational updates 24 hours a day 7 days a week, and other core Emirates platforms such as Dubai Experience. The technology delivers an agile and strong foundation for seamless enhancements and future developments, enabling our Commercial teams to provide the latest market centric information, in multiple languages, specifically tailored for our trade partners. Registration and enrolment is quick and secure, and linked to each agent’s Emirates registered identification.

For more information, travel agents can visit the portal https://www.emirates.partners/, and they can contact their local sales teams for support and assistance.

Source: https://www.emirates.com/media-centre/emirates-launches-bespoke-portal-for-travel-trade-partners/

 

Emirates airline will be resuming passenger services from Nairobi effective 02nd August 2020.
The airline will be operating three times a week being on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Emirates’ local departure from Dubai will be 1015hrs while the local departure from Nairobi will be 1635hrs.

At the same time, in an official communication Emirates stated that the health and safety protocols and measures need to be upheld. Passengers will be subjected to local entry requirements of the individual countries. Check-in at JKIA at Terminal 1B will be 4hrs before departure as per government travel protocols and will close 90 minutes before departure.

It is mandatory to have a 96 hours COVID-19 free certificate, to wear a mask and observe social distancing.
The flag carrier of the United Arab Emirates flies to over 60 destinations click here to see the destinations.

By Eve Lucky Karitu, Kenya Association of Travel Agents

Due to the escalation of the Covid -19 epidemic around the world, the Kenya Tourism Board has announced that the MKTE 2020 edition which was scheduled from 7^th to 9^th October 2020 has been cancelled. An alternative date will be communicated in due course.

In a statement by the Board, KTB mentioned that they carefully monitored the global health crisis related to Covid-19 and the top priority is the health and safety of everyone involved in the annual expo.

“we appreciate your continued support in marketing Kenya as a preferred tourism destination and appreciated the continued mutually beneficial working relationship” said Dr. Betty Radier, The Chief Executive Director of KTB in a statement.

By Eve Lucky, Kenya Association of Travel Agents

A host of international airlines are set to resume operations in and out of Nairobi in August, four months after Kenya suspended all flights to combat the spread of COVID-19.

British Airways says it will operate 4 weekly flights, being on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.

Qatar Airways will also resume operations with 14 weekly flights, which are subject to regulatory approval.

At the same time, Air France says it will begin with one flight to Paris, every Friday, while KLM will begin with 4 flights.

Tourism Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala says health and safety remains the government’s topmost priority, amid the gradual opening of the economy.

The return to the skies by these airlines comes barely ten days after domestic flights resumed operations.

National Carrier Kenya Airways and its subsidiary Jambojet are among airlines that are already operating domestic flights.

The resumption comes even as several measures have been effected at the Jomo Kenyatta Airport to ensure safety against the virus.

Passengers, for instance, will always be required to sanitize their hands several times as well as wearing masks.

Additionally, they will also be required to pass through temperature screening points to ensure safety.

Source: https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/business/2020/07/major-international-airlines-including-qatar-british-and-klm-announce-plans-to-resume-operations-in-and-out-of-nairobi/