Summary
- Kenya Airways has served Recent York JFK since 2018.
- The airline’s Head of Network Planning and Alliances has said its codeshare with Delta has transformed the route.
- Despite being operationally profitable, it remains to be loss-making, as this only covers operating costs – not aircraft ownership and overhead costs.
You can be forgiven for considering that Kenya Airways’ Recent York JFK operation is an exercise in flag-waving, a political and heavily loss-making endeavor. Many have thought that, including me. Throughout the latest of AviaDev’s excellent podcasts on African aviation, Kenya Airways’ Martin Gitonga, Head of Network Planning and Alliances, shed a bit more light on the route.
Kenya Airways to JFK: a summary
The SkyTeam member began flying to Recent York in October 2018. The long, 7,360-mile (11,844 km) route operates five times weekly this winter. KQ2 (not KQ1) leaves Nairobi at 23:35 and arrives at JFK at 06:35+1. Returning, KQ3 departs at 13:45 and arrives back at 11:15+1. It can return to being each day at the tip of March.
Photo: Suparat Chairatprasert I Shutterstock
In keeping with US Department of Transportation data, Kenya Airways carried about 90,000 roundtrip JFK passengers between January and October 2023, the last available month. A money-by-month view is provided below. It had a median seat load factor of 91%, which may be very healthy in itself. Nevertheless, this mustn’t be considered in isolation and will at all times be about the way it was achieved.
Because the figure shows, the pandemic continued to affect the primary few months of the 12 months. This hides the degree to which the capacity-demand balance for the shoulder season needs more work. The summer-seasonal nature of the market, when it operated each day, is obvious to see, with high traffic and loads – and, hopefully, sufficiently high fares and yields.
Source: US DOT. Image: James Pearson
What the airline says
Speaking on AviaDev’s podcast, Gitonga, Kenya Airways’ network chief, said that,
“Recent York is one other flagship destination. We’re going back to each day to JFK. The expansion is propelled
“
The last bit is important and will be surprising. Gitonga clarified it by stating that,
“It isn’t only a flagship when it comes to being an excellent destination. In August 2023, we began a full codeshare with the most important revenue airline globally, Delta. The partnership has really propelled this route.”
Booking data for August-October 2023 suggests that about 36% of Kenya Airways’ JFK passengers connected to a different flight on the airport. It was its single largest source of traffic (Kenya Airways’ partnership with JetBlue helped too, albeit to a much smaller degree). The codeshare with Delta means it also gains additional traffic and revenue from the USA’s ‘Fly America’ requirement for presidency officials.
Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Easy Flying
Now “operationally profitable”
The connection with fellow SkyTeam carrier Delta has been instrumental.
We’re seeing those numbers really translating into our flights, and we closed last 12 months with JFK having the very best variety of occupied seats in business class. That’s business class, so I won’t go into the fares [the other half of the equation].”
Gitonga stated that JFK is now operationally profitable. But this is only one level of profitability. It means it covers operating money costs but excludes aircraft ownership and overheads. The route is, due to this fact, still loss-making, but one hurdle has been cleared. And it does, after all, play a very important role in connectivity.
Photo: Kittikun Yoksap | Shutterstock
Is a each day+ service coming?
Given the above, Gitonga stated that the carrier is considering increasing JFK frequencies. Nevertheless, whether it is rushed or excessive, it has the potential to unwind the progress made up to now.
We are going to maintain JFK as a each day year-round service [it is unclear if this means daily in winter, too]. Nevertheless, we’re analyzing if there’s the potential for more frequencies, crew and equipment permitting.
We currently have a departure within the evening to JFK and an arrival back in Nairobi at around midday. We would like a morning departure from Nairobi, arriving back in Kenya towards the evening.”
What do you make of all of it? Tell us within the comment section.