Kenya Airways Wants To Start Flying To New York In May 2017

With a successful turnaround strategy currently at it's 65%success. What will matter is number of frequencies.. ROYAL AIR MOROC Stated Nairobi route transiting 20pax from Us and are now past 100pax. Sub-lease to Oman air and Turkish is almost due in a year time therefore fleet size is guranteed in long run.

Nairobi is the most stable area in East Africa right now with all of the turmoil going on in Ethiopia. I work for a NGO that does a lot of work in Africa and we're moving most of our conferences and meetings to Nairobi and bringing in lots of people from the U.S. right now our best option is Ethiopian Air, having a direct flight from the U.S. to Nairobi would be incredibly helpful.

They have had a solid business case for this flight dating back a decade or more. It has been delayed multiple times for a variety of reasons such as the safety audits, security situation and shareholder veto (AF-KLM). They already sell a large volume of tickets from the region to North America via Amsterdam and Paris, so being able to route these via JFK with onward Skyteam distribution on Delta would give them a higher prorate of the fares. It may not work out in the long run, but it's definitely not a vanity route.

Hi Lucky. The business class on their 787's is actually pretty good, check out the review we did in 2014: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-reports/1597724-kenya-airways-787-dreamliner-review-kq113-cdg-nbo.html

There was talk about Ethiopian making its way to Miami or Houston. Have you heard any updates about this?

If more of us went on a safari instead of playing with ducks in gold plated bath tubs, the animals would not be shot and killed.

Maybe Kenya airways is saying, liberals we know your hypocrisy

"Horrible" is the new "spectacular" for lucky.

I work for a travel company in South Africa, and a lot of our US clients want to go on East African safaris. Currently they need to transit through Europe, or worse, Johannesburg, in order to get there. This route could shave off a lot of travel time for them.

How does it work with regards to landing slots when launching new service to a slot limited airport? Does the airline starting service have to buy a slot from another airline or does the agency that manages the allocation just squeeze them in?

This route may actually be sought by minority ower KLM and could be a request made in closed door negotiations by another interested investor or contract party.

@Rich why wouldn't the ex-US pax take one of the ME3 to NBO instead of transiting via Johensburg?

I fly ORD-NBO two to three times a year and usually take TK or one of the ME3. Wouldn't even think of taking SA and transiting via South Africa.

I'm falling in love with emercycrite

I have flown US - Nbo (through Europe) over 50 times. And there are tons of Americans coming into Nairobi every day. Many of the flights Nairobi - Europe seem to have close to 50% US travelers. A direct flight Nairobi to the US would be an easy decision. Delta has also been invovled getting this going for a number of years. I'd expect a NBO-ATL flight pretty soon.

Can't wait for this to happen. Despite being owned 24 percent by AF-KLM, Kenya Airways (KQ) is a great airline. They still serve snacks and a drink on domestic 30 minute flights. They are extremely polite. Service is what sets them apart, although they are not as good as they used to be. I was travelling with my children on a domestic KQ flight and we were waiting at the wrong gate. An emplyee actually came up to us and told us that our flight was boarding, and that because we had small children we should go to the front of the line. He escorted us and no other passengers complained. They still accommodate children and are happy to see them, and like most places around the world, except at major US international airports, the luggage carts are free.