The Kenya Airways

The Kenya Airways is a flag carrier airline for Kenya which was founded in 1977 and its head office is located in Embakasi Nairobi with its hub at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Basically, the airline was owned by the Kenyan government until April 1995 and later it was privatized in 1996 becoming the first successful Airline in Africa to do so.

However, currently it is undergoing a private-public partnership with the largest shareholder that is the Government of Kenya. Additionally, it’s a member in both the Sky Team and African Airlines Association. Above all, the Airways has 36 Aircrafts, 95 daily flights and over 56 of which 46 are in Africa. Some of the destinations include Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, China, Chad, Cameroon, Denmark, Comoros, France, Ethiopia, Egypt, Germany, Gabon and many others. Besides, the Airways is called ‘KQ’ and not ‘KA’ because by the time, Korea already had its aviation industry running (Korean Air) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) had already assigned them the code ‘KA’ and on so being Kenya was assigned the code KQ and not KA.

Services

Frequent flyer programmes

In general, Former Kenya Airways’ frequent flyer programme Msafiri was merged with KLM’s Flying Dutchman in 1997, which was in turn merged with that of Air France. However it was rebranded as Flying Blue in 2005, following the fusion of both companies. Nevertheless, Gold Elite and Platinum Elite members of the Flying Blue programme are offered the JV Lounge. Particularly, this service is provided to Kenya Airways passengers, and to passengers flying with its partner airlines as well. On the other hand, Simba Lounge is a service provided to Kenya Airways Business passengers only. Both lounges are located at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

In-flight entertainment

Different in-flight entertainment is available depending upon the aircraft and the class travelled. The airline’s in-flight magazine is called Msafiri, and is distributed among the passengers in all aircraft, irrespective of the class.

Boeing 787-8

Premier World entertainment is AVOD; NVOD is offered in Economy class.

Boeing 737-700/800

Overhead screens in both classes, plus eight channels of audio offered.

Embraer 190

Individual in-seat touchscreens.