Relief for Kenya Airways as Liberia transit ban is lifted

Kenya's Health ministry has lifted a ban on visitors from Ebola-struck Liberia, giving cash-strapped Kenya Airways a boost to its West African operations. PHOTO | FILE |   NATION MEDIA GROUP

By MUGAMBI MUTEGI and BDAfrica.com REPORTER

In Summary

• The Health ministry has lifted a ban on visitors from Ebola-struck Liberia, giving a boost to KQ’s West African operations.
• Kenya Airways has announced it “will now sell transit traffic (from Monrovia, Liberia) through Nairobi to its entire network”.

Kenya's Health ministry has lifted a ban on visitors from Ebola-struck Liberia, giving cash-strapped Kenya Airways (KQ) a boost to its West African operations.

The move allows the carrier to resume offering travellers from Liberia’s capital Monrovia, where it recently resumed operations, access to its entire network via Nairobi.

However, with passengers from other former West African destinations not clear to travel, the airline is still short of going back to the way things were.

READ: Kenya Airways to resume flights to West Africa soon

Before the Ebola outbreak began, Kenya Airways had 44 scheduled flights a week to ten West African cities, including Conakry in Guinea, where the epidemic first broke out in March last year, Freetown in Sierra Leone and Monrovia.

The flights to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia were halted shortly after a Liberian Ebola victim travelled to Lagos (not on a KQ flight), kicking off a small outbreak there.

The airline resumed operations between Accra, Ghana and Monrovia on March 29 this year, offering five flights a week between the two cities, but could not bring any of the Liberian traffic to their Nairobi hub.

According to a news release sent out Wednesday, however, Kenya Airways “will now sell transit traffic through Nairobi to its entire network”.

The ban was initiated in August 2014 on persons who had visited Liberia following the outbreak of the deadly haemorrhagic fever, which has so far claimed over 11,000 lives.

“The airline, in consultation with the Ministry of Health, has constantly assessed the situation and is pleased with the latest development,” said Group CEO and Managing Director Mbuvi Ngunze.