KQ Waits Longer for Permission to Fly to Tanzania

Kevin Namunwa | Aug 7, 2020

Despite Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia announcing that flights from Kenya had been permitted to enter Tanzania, national carrier Kenya Airways can not yet fly to the neighbouring nation.

The neighbouring country had earlier communicated that Kenya Airways flights could not head there under the new COVID-19 restrictions. The government of Tanzania is yet to grant Kenya Airways permission to land in the country.

According to Kenya Airways Chief Executive Officer Allan Kilavuka, the company is still awaiting word from the government of Kenya on when they will resume flights to Tanzania.

The government has already announced to the public that flights are safe to land in the neighbouring country but local carrier KQ has not yet been officially noticed about the same.

“On Tanzanian, we have not yet resumed, we are waiting for the government (of Kenya) to confirm,” Mr Kilavuka noted.

Mr Kilavuka further said that negotiations between the Kenyan and Tanzanian governments about the issue had not yet been completed. Tanzania is one of Kenya Airways’ important routes as the national carrier had planned two daily flights to Dar es Saalam and three weekly flights to the resort city of Zanzibar.

Kenya’s negotiations with Tanzanian are being spearheaded by the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) director-general, Gilbert Kibe, who told this paper that Nairobi was awaiting the decision of Dar es Salaam.

Kenya Airways resumed flights to 30 different locations around the world with new COVID-19 restrictions. The airlines were dormant after flights had been suspended in March as a measure to curb the spread of the virus.

The government allowed the national carrier to resume flights after revising new restrictions to still curb further spread of the virus in the country.

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