Kenya Airways (KQ) has reported positive booking numbers for its daily direct flight to New York, set to launch on October 28.
The airline said it had received around 7 000 bookings thus far, with the inaugural flight more than 80 percent full. According to The EastAfrican, Julius Thairu, KQ’s Sales Director confirmed this. “We are entering the booking window and expect to take off with a much higher occupancy.” This comes after the airline reported to Parliament in June that bookings for the route had been slow, but that they were expecting it to pick up as the selling window grew closer to the inaugural flight.
The daily schedule will be as follows:
- Flight KQ2 will depart Nairobi at 23h25, arriving in New York the following day at 06h25.
- Flight KQ3 will depart New York at 12h00, arriving in Nairobi at 10h30 the following day.
The route will be serviced by a Boeing 787 Dreamliner carrying 234 passengers in a two-class configuration.
In 2017, Kenya reported 148 000 visitors from the US, having grown from 140 000 in 2015 to 144 000 in 2016. After the UK, the US remains Kenya’s second-largest source market of overseas visitors.
