Kenya Airways (KQ), the East African country’s national flag carrier, this week released its results for the full year of 2022. (The airline is currently a public-private partnership, with the Government of Kenya as the biggest, but not majority, shareholder.)  It recorded net losses, after tax, of 38.265-billion Kenya shillings (Kes), which was a 141% deterioration over the equivalent figure of Kes15.878-billion for 2021. The carrier’s operating loss last year was Kes5.616-billion which was, however, a 17% improvement over the 2021 operating loss of Kes6.803-billion.

KQ was hit by the 31% devaluation of the Kenya shilling against the dollar last year, and by the “abnormal” jump in fuel prices, of 160%, also recorded in 2022. As a result, KQ’s total operating costs increased by 59% and direct operating costs jumped by 93%. The latter was driven in part by the greatly increased number of flights operated by the airline, but of course the high fuel prices were a major contributor. The costs of ownership of its aircraft fleet also rose, by 6%, which was the result of the provision for early aircraft returns.

On the other hand, its revenues increased by 66% to Kes117-billion, while the number of passengers it carried rose by 68%, to 3.7-million. Its passenger capacity increased by 75%. The amount of cargo it carried grew by 3.5%, to 65 000 t.

The revenues accrued by the carrier last year were only 5% below those achieved in the last pre-Covid-19 pandemic year of 2019. And the passenger load factors it achieved in 2022 were only 3.9 percentage points below those of 2019. These trends indicate that the airline is on course to achieve full recovery, as planned, next year.

“In 2022, KQs operations were impacted positively by pent-up travel demand, the removal of travel restrictions and KQs efforts to increase frequencies across its network resulting in a strong and sustained recovery in performance compared to a similar period in the prior year,” reported airline chairperson Michael Joseph. “As a result, global passenger traffic recovered from 41.7% of 2019 levels in 2021 to 68.5% in 2022.”

“The airline recorded forex losses occasioned by the restructuring of the guaranteed Government of Kenya loans as part of the ongoing financial restructuring programme, negatively impacting the income statement by Kes26.4-billion,” pointed out KQ MD and CEO Allan Kilavuka. “If you remove the impact of the forex losses and the abnormal fuel cost increase of 160%, we would have made an operating profit. We are on course to turn around the business by 2024. We are confident that this will be achievable with the support we are getting from our customers, our employees, our principal shareholder the Government of Kenya, and other stakeholders.”