Has Kenya Airways Gone To Sleep?

All is not well at one of the most successful airlines Africa has ever seen.

Keen observers are starting to see the classic tell-tale signs of complacency setting in. Delaying of flights without any word or apology, deteriorating standards here and there, little details that mean a lot and which inevitably lead to nothing but disaster in the end.

It is clearly emerging that all the stunning major victories that the pride of Africa has won in recent times may just be too much and has gone into the heads of key managers at the airline.

Unknown to most Kenyans, Kenya Airways has really turned out to be a giant killer in many instances and the fact that it is now one of the very few airlines in the world turning a profit is no accident at all.

Just to illustrate what has been happening, it is useful to examine the case of the recent battle with South African Airlines. The South Africans moved into the East African region and quickly subdued and conquered everyone and everything. As you read this, every key commercial sector in Kenya is under the firm control of our brothers from down south. Mostly they met little resistance although things got a wee bit messy in bottling and the beverage industry (remember the vicious beer wars between Castle Breweries and Kenya Breweries?), but the South Africans were victorious in the end.

They then quickly moved to take over the East African skies. SAA (South African Airways) burst into ongoing negotiations Kenya Airways were having then with the bankrupt Air Tanzania and closed a deal with lightening speed right under the noses of KQ executives.

To the credit of Kenya Airways managers, they quickly sensed what the South African were up to and moved equally quickly to recover. They purchased a 49 per cent stake in a small struggling Arusha-based airline, owned by a former East African Airways pilot of many years, called Precision Air. Their plan was simple, they were going to use the small airline to fight off the giant SAA from their turf.

This writer was able to study a confidential plan drafted in Johannesburg by SAA top management that was designed to take over the entire busy East African traffic and divert it from it's current hub of Nairobi's JKIA to the Dar-es-salaam based Mwalimu Julius Kabarage Nyerere airport. It was a very workable plan and the South Africans were going to use their financial muscle and international connections to make it work. The ultimate plan was to control tourist traffic and divert a lot of it away from Kenya and East Africa to South Africa.

A battle of gigantic proportions ensued. What KQ managers mostly did was to use smaller and more economical aircrafts and then undercut SAA on price while being careful to ensure that their product was of even better quality. That meant well-trained in-flight staff and impeccable customer service. At the end of it Kenya Airways emerged victorious and SAA executives were forced to flee back to Johannesburg with their tails between their legs. While it is true that Kenya Airways has some of the best managers in the region and probably on the entire continent, who truly know their stuff, it must be noted that there were other factors that led to the SAA failure. High on the list is the attitude of Tanzanians. While Kenyans tend to be humble and will take all sorts of punishment from a mzungu, our Tanzanian brothers are quite different.

At one point fierce fistfights broke out at the Air Tanzania offices along Ohio street in the central business district of Dar-es-salaam between white South African managers and Tanzanian middle managers who despite being in the airline business still speak halting, hesitant and sometimes broken English in this Swahili country. It became clear to the SAA executives that locals deeply despise the mere sight of a white "kaburu" (former apartheid enforcers) and they installed a figurehead Black South Africa manager at Air Tanzania while keeping the real executive power with the mostly white technical team, like the operations director.

Then there were all sorts of problems still related to the super nationalistic attitude of Tanzanians that led to poor service and conspired to ensure that the well-laid and heavily financed plans of the South Africans did not work.

This exhilarating victory over mighty SAA must have been one of the victories that had the greatest effect on KQ managers and it is now clear it is high on the list of those that have gone completely into their heads.

But now new threats have emerged on the local front that will not be so easy to deal with. There are several economy airlines operating out of Wilson airport that fly to various destinations, including Europe, we even have a new budget airline that operates scheduled flights within Kenya. And now the very latest kid on the block is mighty, giant killer Virgin Atlantic Airline, founded and managed by one Sir Richard Branson.

As from June 1st Branson's airline which is famous for its' service and efficiency, will start operating daily flights from Heathrow, London to Nairobi. Insiders in the industry know only too well that the London route is one of KQ's most lucrative cash cows at the moment.

Branson is a shrewd operator and one of the other areas he is looking at is game reserve management which will combine perfectly with his mostly tourist traffic out of Heathrow and should combine to shut out KQ from the loop.

The big question is; will this latest development wake the pride of Africa from her deep slumber?

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Regular violent wife rape by a dutiful husband.

Recent comments posted on KQ elsewhere in this blog (here is the link; http://kumekucha.blogspot.com/2007/03/richard-branson-of-virgin-fame-is-in.html#comments);

Anonymous said...
Thank you Sir Branson, its about time someone showed KQ how to treat passengers and run an international airline.

Believe it or not, it has become quite normal for KQ to leave out passengers with confirmed tickets, delay flights for up to more than three hours and as always charge exorbitantly on local routes owing to their dominance and monopoly.

We look forward to this new breath of fresh air.

4:02 AM
Anonymous said...
I agree with anon...

i once used KQ from Lon-Nbo and was disgusted by the service: the stewards were outright rude and unkempt!!!! I swore never to use them again... i've since kept that promise... so much for the "pride of africa".

Karibu Virginatlantic!!!

4:24 PM
mulwaa said...
I flew KQ nbi-Amsterdam-London-Atlanta. I must admit it's not all that rosy. but i dont owe this to monopoly coz Qatar and emirates have for as long as I can remember kept them on their toes. And even if their service was top class we would still welcome evry other airlines with open arms coz variety is the spice of life. Wajeee. Wakujeeee.