Over the past five years, what has sustained Kenya Airways (KQ) through stormy skies has been the uninterrupted stream of hope flowing from its C-suite.
In its outgoing Chief Executive, Allan Kilavuka, the embattled national carrier found a steady source of that hope, keeping it aloft through turbulent skies and calmly guiding it through one of its gravest financial crises.
But last week, the board of KQ, as the airline is known by its international code, announced that Mr Kilavuka would be exiting the corner office of the Kenyan flag carrier four months short of the end of his term, raising questions about whether his cup of optimism is still overflowing.
As KQ’s financial crisis has deepened, with the airline posting some of the largest losses in the country’s corporate history, it has also become the butt of many jokes—a situation worsened by frequent flight delays, technical diversions and emergency landings.
Absorbing all the criticism leveled at KQ has been Mr Kilavuka, whose armor has been an air of optimism and a beacon of patriotism captured in the airline’s logo.
"You know, when I took this job [of KQ CEO], most of my friends...were asking me 'why?'" said Mr Kilavuka in a past interview.
“Instead of congratulating me, they would offer commiserations because of the difficulties of the job. It is in fact a difficult job but my argument is very simple; how does it fit in my purpose, in my thought process?” added Kilavuka.
It is not hard to see why his friends were bemused by his decision to jump out of the frying pan into the fire. After leaving a well-paying job at General Electric, where he served as head of sub-Saharan Africa operations, the trained engineer joined Jambojet- Kenya Airways’ low-cost carrier, in January 2019.
From December of that year, Mr Kilavuka also served as acting CEO of KQ before being appointed Group Managing Director and CEO in April 2020. At the time, airlines around the world were hemorrhaging financially due to the travel restrictions governments imposed to contain the spread of COVID‑19.
In 2020, KQ reported its biggest loss of around Sh36.6 billion as the cpandemic devastated air travel and sharply reduced passenger demand.
Mr Kilavuka, found himself going without full pay, together with employees, for several months as the airline struggled to find perfect landing.
Amidst all the doom and gloom, Mr Kilavuka, whose spirit of resilience had been shaped by a nasty experience of bullying at a boarding school, remained optimistic, choosing the bigger picture of the role that KQ plays in supporting the Kenyan economy and marketing the country abroad, rather than its battered profit and loss account.
“Kenya Airways’ most significant contribution is undoubtedly not just in returns to shareholders but to the country and continent,” said Mr Kilavuka in a commentary for this publication in March 2023.
According to him, joining KQ despite its shortfalls was a defining moment because it is “the only Kenyan company that is truly international.”
“We have over 50 stations around the world and employ 4,000 people directly and maybe about 26,000 people indirectly,” he said in a past interview.
“The contributions that Kenya Airways makes to this country and to this continent are significant. So it's a very humbling responsibility for me to come and help support this airline."
In the commentary, he urged Kenyans to give the management of KQ time, promising to turn a profit in 2024. He dismissed the idea that in the absence of KQ, someone else could fill the void.
“Wrong! That would only work for as long as it was in the best interest of the said ‘someone.’ That someone would focus purely on return on investment,” he said.
He went on to outline the airline’s path to profitability and sustainability, noting that this would be attained using both the “hard” and “soft” parts.
According to him, the “hard” approach involves strengthening the balance sheet, achieving nearly 85 percent of cost-cutting initiatives, and saving over Sh5 billion through lease negotiations. The “soft” approach focuses on customer and operational excellence, employee experience, and a culture transformation programme called ‘Re-ignite.’ He also emphasised accountability at all levels.
The management of KQ, he said, only had two key milestones: to become profitable in 2024 and sustainable by 2027.
“Yes, we have a plan! What we are asking for is time and support!”
Indeed, in the financial year ending December 31, 2024, KQ posted its first full-year profit of Sh5.4 billion after more than a decade of losses.
A key driver of KQ’s improved performance in 2024 was foreign exchange gains of Sh10.55 billion, compared to a loss of Sh15.04 billion in 2023, as the local currency strengthened by more than 20 percent against the dollar last year.
But most of these gains seem to have evaporated this year. The airline, which resumed trading at the Nairobi Securities Exchange at the beginning of 2025, reported a half-year net loss of Sh12.15 billion, compared to a Sh513 million profit after tax in the same period in 2024, citing grounding of 33 percent of its wide-bodied aircraft as the main cause.
In November, KQ issued a profit warning for its full-year earnings for the period ending December 2025, attributing it to a drop in passenger numbers following grounding of some of its large aircraft. The cautionary statement means the airline's net profit for the period will be lower by at least 25 percent or Sh1.35 billion compared to the Sh5.4 billion net profit posted in the year to December 2024.
This week, KQ’s board announced that Mr Kilavuka will proceed on terminal leave ahead of the expiry of his term in April, with the airline’s chief operating officer George Kamal set to take over in an interim capacity effective Tuesday as the recruitment of a substantive successor begins.
“Allan served with commitment, dedication, honour and diligence, steering the Company through the turbulent Covid-19 period which affected the aviation sector negatively,” the KQ board said in a statement.
