Kenya will pitch for an additional three flight frequencies to the United Kingdom(UK) for its national carrier, Kenya Airways (KQ), as part of a strategy to boost trade and investment between the two countries.
Roads and Transport Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir said that Kenya will seek an extra three frequencies to London’s main Heathrow Airport.
“We will be pitching for three more frequencies to Heathrow in the next season, even with Gatwick, three additional frequencies would be quite good,” he said in an interview at Gatwick last week.
KQ currently has 10 flight frequencies to the UK, with seven to Heathrow and three to Gatwick Airport where it commenced direct flights on July 2, 2025.
Mr Chichir said that British Airways, which currently operates seven weekly flights into Nairobi, has been granted an additional three frequencies into Heathrow.
“You can see the kind of fair game you play even as you open the skies. We open it to the extent that we are working on reciprocal and win-win arrangements,” the CS said.
Julius Thairu, KQ’s Chief Commercial and Customer Officer, in a separate interview, said that the London route remains one of the airline’s most profitable, with the addition of the Gatwick route expected to boost its broader expansion goals.
“…We fly seven times daily to Heathrow, and we’re almost full year-round. But Heathrow has limitations with landing slots, so we are not able to actually increase our frequencies,” he said.
According to Mr Thairu, the London market alone contributes over 10 percent of the airline’s total turnover. The new second London gateway in Gatwick is expected to boost the turnover with the addition of 700 additional weekly seats into the UK market.
Gatwick Airport located in West Sussex, England is 47.5 kilometres south of Central London–making it a convenient gateway for travelers from the Southeast and South of England.
The shift to Gatwick also comes against the backdrop of operational constraints at Heathrow, where the KQ said that obtaining additional landing rights has become costly.
“There are a few slots left [at Heathrow], but you have to cough out hundreds of millions of dollars to buy those slots and I don’t think that makes business sense,” Mr Thairu added.
In 2016, KQ sold its 5:30 a.m. Heathrow arrival slot to Oman Air for about Sh5.3 billion.
The early morning slots tend to be valuable to airlines due to passenger demand, which can fall by up to 50 percent by evening, giving such time windows premium status among global carriers. Heathrow now stands with one landing slot daily for KQ.
Source : Business Daily
