KQ jet targets new cargo volumes

Kenya Airways and CAA officials cut a tape to commission the new cargo plane in Entebbe. PHOTO BY MARTIN SSEBUYIRA 

By Martin Ssebuyira
 

 

In Summary

The new jet will help the airline capitalise on cargo business as it seeks to contain the surge in demand for cargo services.

Entebbe

Kenya Airways has commissioned its first fully owned freight jet to tap into the growing trade volumes in Africa.

The Boeing B737-300 aircraft with cargo capacity of 20 metric tonnes was one of the four Kenya Airways planes that had reached the end of their operations in passenger service and were converted into cargo freighter planes.

Areas of operation
“It will operate in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa and the planned destinations include Entebbe, Juba, Luanda, Bangui, Douala, Yaoundé, Kigali, Mombasa, Dar-es-Salaam, Mwanza, Kinshasha and Bujumbura, among others,” Kenya Airways chief operating officer, Mbuvi Ngunze, said at the launch on Friday. He said that the new jet would help the airline capitalise on cargo business as it seeks to contain the surge in demand for cargo services in some of the regional routes where it operates the smaller Embraer jets.

The company intends to have 12 freighters by 2022 according to their 10-year development plan to present value addition through expansion of flows from China to other points in Africa, providing a solution for the in-feed, de-feed capacity mismatch that currently exists.

Mr Ssebaggala Kigozi, the executive director of Uganda Manufactures Association, said Uganda’s exports are expected to grow by an average of 50 per cent after joining the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (Comesa) Free Trade Area, which is an opportunity for increased exports and imports.

“Uganda trades more with her neighbours mainly in East Africa and Comesa regional blocs according to the Uganda Bureau of Stastistics Investor survey where Kenya Airways should take keen interest to provide cargo freighters with bigger capacities,” he said.