Kenya Airways rethinking west Africa bound flights
Passengers boarding a Kenya Airways plane at Entebbe International Airport in Uganda. The airline is reviewing the future of its operations to Ebola-hit countries and will announce a decision on Thursday. FILE PHOTO | NATION
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Unlike foreign airlines which have infrequent flights into the affected countries, Kenya Airways, a major African carrier, would suffer greater losses in passenger numbers were it to cancel scheduled flights.
Six Members of Parliament have demanded that national carrier Kenya Airways immediately stop all flights to Ebola-hit west African nations. This is despite assurances by global health and airline regulatory bodies that the risks involved are not high enough to warrant travel restrictions.
The MPs say Kenya Airways was “irresponsible” to continue plying the West African routes at a time where major international airlines like British Airways and Lufthansa has stopped operations to affected countries.
Unlike foreign airlines which have infrequent flights into the affected countries, Kenya Airways, a major African carrier, would suffer greater losses in passenger numbers were it to cancel scheduled flights.
Responding to public sentiment, chief executive Titus Naikuni announced Wednesday that the airline was reviewing the future of its operations to Ebola-hit countries and would announce a decision on Thursday.
Speaking under the auspices of the Parliamentary Human Rights Caucus, the MPs also asked Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) to forbid the entry into Kenya of flights from countries in west Africa currently facing the Ebola crisis.
“We are concerned that their continued flights to and from West Africa, at a time when the Ebola outbreak has overwhelmed countries like Liberia and Nigeria, puts Kenya at very great risk,” the MPs said in a statement read out in Parliament by ODM-nominated MP Zulekha Hassan. The MPs accused the airline of putting the country at risk by prioritising corporate profits.
Kenya is one of 35 countries that are one direct flight away from Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria, where Ebola cases have been reported. Only two of those countries – Côte d'Ivoire and Saudi Arabia – have barred all flights and passengers to and from affected nations. Nigeria has restricted some flights by airlines whose precautions were inadequate.
The International Air Transport Association, the World Health Organisation and the International Civil Aviation Organisation have jointly been studying the implications of continued air travel in the face of the outbreak.
On Monday, IATA said: “The risk of a tourist or businessman/woman becoming infected with the Ebola virus during a visit to the affected areas and developing the disease after returning is extremely low, even if the visit included travel to the local areas from which primary cases have been reported.
Transmission requires direct contact with blood, secretions, organs or other body fluids of infected living or dead persons or animal, all unlikely exposures for the average traveller. Tourists are, in any event, advised to avoid all such contacts.”
The WHO subsequently classified Kenya as a high-risk area for an Ebola outbreak because it receives 76 flights a week from affected areas.
The MPs — Ken Okoth (ODM, Kibra), Abdulahi Diriye (ODM, Wajir South), Neto Agostinho (ODM, Ndhiwa), Robert Mutemi (Wiper, nominated), Johana Ngeno (KNC, Emurua Dikir) and Pricilla Nyokabi (TNA, Nyeri County) — also demanded that a taskforce be set up to ensure preparedness for the Ebola virus.
“We demand that the Cabinet secretaries for Health (James Macharia), Transport (Michael Kamau), Interior (Joseph Ole Lenku) and Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero constitute immediately a joint task force for national preparedness against Ebola,” the MPs said.
Ms Hassan said the taskforce should put in place measures for preventing the disease from spreading to Kenya, prepare hospitals and medical personnel on how to handle the outbreak if it reaches the country, coordinate public awareness and information sharing between agencies and citizens and put in place emergency response teams in the event of an outbreak.
The Ebola virus has so far killed over 1,000 people in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria since it broke out in early February.
