What Kenya Airways' Resilience Reveals About Aviation as Economic Infrastructure

Speaking during a recent Kenya Airways X-Space panel on Africa's aviation future with Air Connectivity as Economic Infrastructure, Captain George Kamal, the airline's Acting Group Managing Director and CEO, described what that meant in practice. 

A Kenya Airways cargo aircraft bound for Dubai had to divert to Muscat after the conflict erupted. Two other KQ aircraft were already airborne when Niger closed its airspace and had to be redirected to Lagos. Flights now avoiding Libyan and Sudanese airspace are taking about an hour longer, with each affected Boeing 787 sector requiring approximately 7.5 tonnes of additional fuel. 

The cost has been real, but the disruption also made the case for why a national carrier matters. "It's not only about cash," Kamal said. "It also has a value to the country and to the people." 

June Chepkemoi, CEO of the Kenya Tourism Board, tied that directly to Kenya's ability to stay connected during the crisis, noting that because Kenya Airways could reroute through Europe and Turkey and keep its network running, the country avoided the disruption that hit markets dependent entirely on foreign carriers. Abdirahman Berté, Secretary General of the African Airlines Association, offered a starker example from elsewhere on the continent. When foreign carriers pulled out at the start of the Gulf war, he said, one African airport went completely silent, with no national or regional airline left to keep it operating. 

A road isn't profitable on every kilometre. A port doesn't generate the same volume every day. Both are still treated as essential, because they connect people, goods and opportunity, and the panelists argued aviation deserves the same framing rather than being judged as a purely commercial service. 

Kenya Airways carries about five million passengers a year and accounts for roughly 60% of traffic arriving in Kenya, running close to 100 daily flights against the two or three a typical foreign carrier operates into the country. Beyond passengers, the airline is estimated to facilitate KES 425 billion, or about US$3.4 billion, in economic activity, roughly 3.1% of Kenya's GDP, and to support some 460,000 jobs, according to IATA figures cited during the discussion. 

On a continental scale, the Single African Air Transport Market has been slow to take hold, since many governments have signed on but remain reluctant to fully open their markets in order to protect national carriers. Visa restrictions still complicate travel between African countries, and millions of dollars in airline revenue remain stuck in some markets rather than being reinvested in aircraft, routes or maintenance. Non-African airlines currently carry 50.8% of international traffic to and from Africa, a share Berté said can only shift if African carriers become more financially sustainable and collaborate more. Kenya, he noted, stands out for having no visa restrictions for African citizens, a policy he described as a model for the rest of the continent. 

Kenya Airways is approaching its 50th anniversary in January 2027, working to restore grounded aircraft and grow its fleet from 43 today to a targeted 60 by 2030, with further expansion planned through 2035. Two grounded Dreamliners are undergoing engine work, one expected back in September, the other by year-end, while the Boeing 777 has already added capacity on the London Heathrow route, running load factors of roughly 75% outbound and 83 to 85% inbound. 

Strip Kenya Airways out of that week in February and the picture looks very different: no reroute through Europe and Turkey, no cargo still reaching Dubai, no way to keep travellers and goods moving when the routes around them shut down. Other countries lived that scenario when their foreign carriers pulled out. Kenya didn't, because when the test came, the national carrier held. That's the real argument for treating aviation as infrastructure: not what it does in a good year, but what it does when everything else stops.