Air ticket prices fall after Easter season ends

Air ticket prices for domestic routes have fallen by more than half after the Easter holiday came to an end, giving relief to many travellers who had been stranded after the price of air travel had more than doubled.

The price of a one-way ticket that was costing as high as Sh15,500 on budget carrier airline Jambojet last week is now going for Sh5,500 with Silverstone charging Sh5,200 for the same route.

Last week’s hike was precipitated by high number of travellers who were commuting for Easter holidays in different parts of the country.

The high demand saw Jambojet increase frequencies for some routes in order to cope with the high number of passengers seeking to travel by air.

“Easter is a peak season for the tourism industry and families do travel a lot during this time. Jambojet has increased our frequencies to the popular destinations to meet the growing demand including the coast, the increased demand for air travel caused an increase in fare prices,” said Jambojet last week.

Fares to other routes like Kisumu and Eldoret have also dropped significantly to a low of Sh4,500 from Sh10,500 to the lakeside city last week.

Silverstone Airline, which was fully booked during the Easter weekend, now has space with fares going to as low as Sh4,200 in some of the routes.

Silverstone, which operates from Wilson Airport, was fully booked on April 18 and 19 on Mombasa routes and so is the Kisumu route with the same airline on the same dates.

High demand also saw Kenya Airways deploy Boeing 737 Dreamliner on local routes in Kisumu and Mombasa. The airline normally use low capacity Embraer 190 on these routes.

The airline upgraded a total of six flights to operate the Boeing 787 Dreamliner on the Nairobi-Mombasa route; two flights on Thursday April 18, one flight on Good Friday, one flight on Easter Sunday and two flights on Easter Monday. "The increased capacity will give our customers greater choice and flexibility in planning their travel during this peak travel period. Our customers to Mombasa will also get a chance to experience the state-of the-art Dreamliner which usually operates on international routes,” said KQ CEO, Sebastian Mikosz last week.

The SGR passenger service between Nairobi and Mombasa that were fully booked during the Easter weekend now has availability.

Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) said tickets for the express train had been fully booked on April 18 and April 19 for passengers travelling to the coastal town of Mombasa from Nairobi.

The train from Mombasa to Nairobi was also fully booked on April 22 with only a few seats left on second class coaches on April 23.

Many Kenyans have embraced air travel in the recent days following increased competition in terms of the number of airlines that offer services in different routes of the country.

The cost of air travel has significantly reduced in the recent past making it affordable to most Kenyans seeking alternatives from road.