NAIROBI, May 25 (Xinhua) -- Kenya Airways on Thursday announced a 99 million U.S. dollars loss for the 2016 financial year, a 61 percent reduction compared to the previous year.
Kenya Airways CEO Mbuvi Ngunze told an investor briefing in Nairobi that the reduction in losses was attributed to ongoing rationalization of operations.
"During the past financial year that ended on March 2017, there was a reduction of total direct operating costs by 25 million dollars and fleet ownerships costs by 140 million dollars," Ngunze said.
He noted that the improved performance was also due to increased frequency to African destinations.
"Our intra-Africa traffic jumped by 13 percent in 2016 underpinned by our strong focus on the African continent," he said.
Kenya's national carrier recorded a 9 million dollars operating profit for the period under review as compared to an operating loss of 41 million dollars in the prior period.
The CEO said that the airline was also affected by the negative exchange rate that impacted a number of African countries such as Nigeria as well as market pressure from increased capacity by competitors.
He said that despite reducing the number of aircraft under operation, passenger numbers grew by 5.4 percent to reach 4.5 million customers.
In addition, cargo volumes declined due to phasing out of Boeing 777 and the entry of Boeing 787.
"This led to reduction in capacity offered into the market resulting in constraining the space available to uplift cargo within the network," said the airline.
Beginning in October, Kenya's flag carrier will introduce 30 additional flight frequencies to existing African destinations.
The airline currently flies to 53 destinations worldwide, out of which 42 are in Africa.
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