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Disruptions, higher costs as some Wilson flights shift to JKIA
The Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) is undertaking extensive rehabilitation works at Wilson Airport, including improvements to pavements, aprons and the facility’s two runways.
Several domestic airlines plan to shift some of their scheduled flights to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) from Wilson Airport, which is set for rehabilitation works, signalling extra costs for carriers and disruptions for passengers.
The Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) is undertaking extensive rehabilitation works at Wilson Airport, including improvements to pavements, aprons and the facility’s two runways.
Wilson Airport has recently become highly popular with passengers due to its proximity to Nairobi’s central business district (CBD) and nearby middle-class residential areas such as Karen, Lang’ata, South B, South C and Kilimani.
Several domestic airlines, including Safarilink Aviation Limited, Renegade Air, AirKenya Express and Skyward Express, operate flights through Wilson Airport.
Wilson is one of the busiest airports in terms of aircraft movement in East and Central Africa. Domestic flights account for about 90 percent of total traffic at the facility.
Alex Avedi, chief executive officer of Safarilink Aviation Limited, confirmed that airlines will review their landing and take-off operations to accommodate the rehabilitation works at Wilson Airport.
“All takeoffs and landings, instead of being on two separate runways, will now be on one runway, which is runway 14,” he told Business Daily.
Safarilink has already rescheduled several flights to operate through JKIA from February 3. An operations schedule showed that all Safarilink inbound evening flights arriving in Nairobi after 6.00 pm will land at JKIA instead of Wilson. These include flights from Lamu, Malindi, Mombasa and Zanzibar, with arrival times at JKIA between 7.15 pm and 8.20 pm.
Mr Avedi said the relocation has introduced additional costs for the airline, including running parallel operations at Wilson and JKIA, as well as passenger transfers between the two airports.
“We have to move some of our operations, not all, with some of the bigger aircraft to JKIA for the duration of the rehabilitation,” the Safarilink CEO said.
Sources told Business Daily that other airlines are also expected to move some flights to JKIA from Wilson as the upgrade works progress.
