KQ to revive grounded jets as it seeks Sh194b in turnaround funds

Kenya Airways (KQ) will start reviving three grounded Boeing aircraft in July 2026. The national carrier is also eyeing $1.5 billion (Sh194 billion) in fresh capital injection by March next year to fund its turnaround plans.

It expects the funding to come from investors, government support and structured financing arrangements. 

Kenya Airways Board Chairman Kiprono Kittony said on Friday during the airline’s 50th Annual General Meeting that the carrier plans to release an investment memorandum.

This as it explores various funding options, including equity financing, strategic airline partnerships and financial investors from both local and international markets and government support. The money will be used to settle debt obligations, cut liquidity pressures, operational challenges and aircraft shortages due to delayed sourcing of new planes and spare parts for grounded ones.

Kenya Airways also listed geopolitics, fuel price volatility brought about by the Middle East war between the US and Israel against Iran as other major risks, disclosing that aviation fuel accounts for roughly 20 to 30 per cent of total operating costs.

The above challenges saw the airline make Sh17.2 billion before tax loss in the year 2025.“We are very clear that the amount of money we think the airline will require for it to really be able to capture the imagination of the future consumer is in the region of $1.5 billion (Sh194 billion. Aviation is not a cheap industry; we are looking at a lot of new capital,” said Kittony.

“So in terms of the future, I mean the transformation of this board mandate is, as I said earlier, transformational. Transformation is not an option because we must either evolve or we will not see the light of day, but we are holding conversations with all our investors and stakeholders, and the turnaround work is well in progress.”

Kittony, who was appointed to the board in early March, expressed hope in the turnaround strategy, saying the fact that the airline’s share trading on the Nairobi bourse has grown by over Sh500 million in the recent past, since the board was reconstituted, is a show of investor confidence.

Kenya Airways acting Group Managing Director George Kamal said in December 2025 and January this year, they brought three aircraft back to operation, and also recently they got one Boeing 787 in the air. “So the impact of the remaining aircraft is about 15 per cent to 18 per cent, which will reduce 15 per cent to 18 per cent of the number of seats offered in the market,” said Kamal.

 “And once we get the Boeing 787 in place, which is 400 seats up, expecting the number of seats to be around 6 to 8 per cent less than the total number of seats.  And by August, we will be having another aircraft up, and that will give us a good margin and we will remain with one on the ground.”

The chairman said the airline decided to slow down acquisition plans for new aircraft due to the geopolitical issues, but they still have a very robust plan in place.

“What we have done for this year is we slowed down once we saw the geopolitical issue and the prices of fuel increasing and the impact, which might impact us significantly,” said Kamal.

“So we took this decision in February to slow down and move our next plan forward to 2027. However, our end goal, we’re talking about 2030, we’re looking at 60 aircraft in the group, but we’re very ambitious to look at 100 aircraft as a total by 2030, some owned and some leased.”

Kamal said they have three Embraers grounded waiting for engines to land, two Boeing 787s with one in a 12-year heavy check.

“So, we have an engine coming on June 19, then the second one on July 15 with a bit of a delay in the turnaround time. That’s again due to the global supply chain issues,” said Kamal.

“So, once the engines and spare parts are here, then we will release them by the end of July or the beginning of the first week of August. And we have our Boeing 777s coming in July, and they will be flying on the London route.”

Kamal said they also look forward to growing the cargo business from the current market share at the beginning of the year, at about 11.8 per cent and by the end of this year, they are looking forward to having approximately 40 per cent of market share.

On fuel hedging, which is a risk management strategy used by companies to protect themselves from volatile and potentially rising fuel prices, Mary Mwenga, acting chief financial officer, said that despite having a policy in the organisation that is approved by our board, they currently do not have an active fuel hedging contract.