The share price of national carrier Kenya Airways (KQ) fell by 19.8 percent in trading on Wednesday, a day after the airline reported a net loss of Sh12.15 billion for the half-year to June 2025.
The stock closed the day at Sh4 per share, down from Sh4.99 on Tuesday, with investors more than doubling the number of shares they traded to 1.29 million, up from 558,080 the previous day.
KQ share closing price on Tuesday is the lowest since the company returned to active trading at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) on January 6, 2025, after nearly four-and-a-half years of suspension.
The share was trading without the usual daily price movement cap of 10 percent, due to the material announcement of its financial results after the market closed on Tuesday.
KQ's Sh12.5 billion loss, compares with a net profit of Sh513 million in the corresponding period in 2024.
The half-year 2025 loss was attributed to capacity challenges after a third of its wide-body aircraft remained grounded in the first half of this year owing to challenges sourcing spare parts amid a global shortage, and the high cost of servicing engines.
A wide-body aircraft has a spacious fuselage that accommodates two passenger aisles and includes planes types such as Boeing 777 and 787 Dreamliner, Airbus A350, and Boeing 747.
KQ’s plans to bring on board four narrow-body planes were also hit by a shortage of aircraft, with the airline only acquiring one Boeing 737-800 plane in the period.
Last year, the airline also rebounded to its first full-year profit in a decade—posting a Sh5.4 billion net profit for the 12 months to December 2024, turning around a net loss of Sh22.6 billion reported the previous year.
With the return to loss-making territory in the half-year period, the company’s share ended yesterday’s trading session with the biggest decline, ahead of CIC Insurance, which shed 9.4 percent to Sh4.84 per share, and Olympia Capital, whose share price fell by 6.9 percent to Sh5.16.
Since its return to the market in January, the KQ share has traded within a range of Sh4 and Sh8.50 per unit, with a daily traded volume of 339,954 shares.
The stock was suspended for nearly four-and –a- half years (since July 2020) for Sh3.83 per share following the tabling of the Kenya Aviation Management Bill 2020 in the National Assembly, which proposed to consolidate aviation assets in the country, including KQ and the Kenya Airports Authority into one holding company.
This proposal set the airline on a path to re-nationalisation and ultimately a delisting from the market. The consolidation plan, however, collapsed as the government opted to pursue alternative routes to steer the airline back to profitability.
Following extensions of the suspension over the years, the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) at the beginning of this year opted not to renew the latest year-long suspension that was ending on January 5, partly due to the airline returning to profits in 2024.
