Thomson Airways, the world’s largest chartered airline, has extended the cancellation of its weekly chartered flights into the country until October next year. PHOTO | NATION | KEVIN ODIT
What you need to know:
The move will deny the country thousands of tourists during the entire period the firm usually promotes Kenyan beach and safari holidays.
British tour operator Thomson, which evacuated hundreds of tourists from Kenya’s coast in May, has extended the cancellation of its weekly chartered flights into the country until October next year.
The move is expected to deny the country thousands of tourists during the entire period the firm usually promotes Kenyan beach and safari holidays.
The company had initially announced that its Thomson Airways subsidiary would stop flights to Kenya until October 2014, after the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office advised against all but essential travel to Mombasa island.
In July, Thomson extended its cancellations until the end of April 2015, but this week revealed that these had now been pushed back until October 2015 because the Foreign Office has not altered its May travel advice.
Thomson Airways, the world’s largest chartered airline, has an air service licence that allows it to fly a Boeing 767 or a 787 into Mombasa from Gatwick once a week. Its planes are configured for 260 to 330 passengers, suggesting Kenya will be denied at least 10,000 tourists over 14 months.
The UK is Kenya’s leading tourist source market, with about 160,000 visitors travelling from there last year, mainly on scheduled flights. Kenya Airways, British Airways and other scheduled carriers continue to operate as usual.
Thomson and its sister company First Choice, both run by Europe’s leading operator TUI Travel, evacuated some 400 tourists after the FCO advisory. Days later, Switzerland-based operator Kuoni also cancelled holidays in Kenya saying that even though it offered holidays in areas not covered by the warning, the access roads to the resorts ran through restricted areas.
Kuoni now says it is not actively promoting a hotel it operates just 2.5 hours north of Mombasa airport “as long as the FCO advice remains as is”.
While some TUI subsidiaries like TUI Germany continue to bring in visitors, others like TUI Holland and its chartered airline Arke (formerly Arkefly) have cancelled all tours over the security situation. Several Italian charter flights to Kenya’s coast resumed about three weeks ago, but industry insiders expect occupancy rates to remain low for the foreseeable future.
British interest in holidaying at Kenya’s coastal resorts is far from dead, however. Hayes & Jarvis, a Thomson sister company, has reportedly placed its resorts near Mombasa back on sale from December this year “due to demand from customers and continual analysis of the UK travel industry”.
A Hayes & Jarvis manager told industry news site TTG Digital: “We are not actively promoting the coastal area, but are taking some bookings due to natural demand from customers seeking a beach break following a safari.”
At least four nations, including the UK and the United States, have warned against “non-essential travel” to parts of Kenya after attacks by Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab militants that had left more than 100 people dead. Two tourists have been shot dead in Mombasa in the months since the FCO warning.
The FCO's warning covered the Mombasa Island area, Kiwayu and coastal areas north of Pate Island, the Garissa district, Nairobi’s slums and the Eastleigh neighbourhood. Areas within 60km of the Kenya-Somalia border were also included in the warning. However, it excluded the Diani resort area or Mombasa’s Moi international airport.
