Passengers disembark from a Jambojet plane at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi. PHOTO | FILE
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This comes at a time when its parent company KQ is battling a financial storm caused by past ambitious fleet expansion strategy.
Budget carrier Jambojet is shopping for extra planes that it said would enable it introduce flights to neighbouring nations.
The airline, which is a subsidiary of Kenya Airways, plans to expand its wings to 10 routes from the current four and launch flights to Entebbe, Mogadishu, Juba and Dar es Salaam.
“We are looking around for more aircraft, either second hand or new. But we are doing this with a lot of caution to avoid financial haemorrhage,” Jambojet chief executive Willem Hondius told Shipping & Logistics in an interview. He did not disclose the cost or size of war chest for the acquisition.
This comes at a time when its parent company KQ is battling a financial storm caused by past ambitious fleet expansion strategy.
Mr Hondius said the budget carrier, which began operations in April 2014, has everything well planned. Jambojet is currently operating on six domestic routes including Eldoret, Kisumu, Mombasa, Lamu and Malindi from its base in Nairobi.
The carrier last year got a licence for international flights from the aviation regulator to fly to nine East Africa destinations such as Bujumbura, Kigali, Zanzibar, Kilimanjaro and Addis Ababa.
Its expected debut on the regional stage raises competition for rival carriers including Fly540, RwandAir, PrecisionAir, Ethiopian and UK budget airline Fastjet, which recently introduced flights between Nairobi and Dar.
Jambojet has a fleet of four planes – two 142-seater B737-300 and two 78-seater Bombardier Q400.
Mr Hondius said short-haul routes are becoming increasingly competitive due to entry of new players and expansion by established carriers hence the need to diversify.
Jambojet emerged out of loss-making territory to make a profit of Sh57 million in the half year ended last September, lifted by high passenger numbers.
This contrasted KQ’s performance, which made the biggest net loss in the country’s corporate history at Sh25.7 billion in the year ended March 2015.
KQ’s poor performance has been attributed to high revenue outflows to finance Mawingu project that saw the airline acquire new Dreamliner planes.
Jambojet says it benefited from increased traffic during festivities when holidaymakers flew to coastal towns. The low-cost carrier is riding on relatively cheaper fares to boost passenger volumes by encouraging more people to fly as opposed to travelling by bus.
Mr Hondius said the airline will go big on marketing spend to inculcate the culture of flying in Kenyans as is the case in developed nations.
“We are going to step up our marketing campaign to attract more first time flyers who account for 30 per cent of our passengers,” he said. The airline said use of mobile money to pay for fare has taken off with 55 per cent of the transactions done on M-Pesa.
Jambojet’s lowest one-way fare is Sh2,950, which is more than half that charged by KQ when the trip is booked in advance. Passengers, however, pay for frills.
Mr Hondius expects the airline to start operating on the Wajir and Isiolo routes this year.
