Kenya Airways has revealed its posted a pretax loss of 8.56 billion Kenyan shillings ($82.95 million) during the first half of 2019, compared with a loss of 3.99 billion shillings in the same period last year.
The airline recorded a 12.2% increase in revenue for the six months period ended June 30, 2019 attributed to the positive performance of recently introduced routes, in line with the airline’s network expansion strategy.
Its expansion strategy includes investment in new strategic routes such as New York, Mauritius, Libreville, Mogadishu, Rome, Geneva and Malindi delivered a 6.6% increase in passenger numbers during the period to hit 2.4 million. This boosted passenger revenues by 5.9% to Kshs. 42.60 billion.
Earlier this year in July, Kenya's parliament voted to renationalise the airline, which is struggling under the mounting debt it's facing.
Group Chairman, Michael Joseph, commented: "We continue to steer the business away from the previous headwinds, steadily digging it out of the historic loss of Ksh. 25 billion posted in 2014.
"As at the end of 2018, the losses had narrowed by over 250%. This is a testament of our commitment to turnaround Kenya Airways."
During the period, the airline brought back two Boeing 787 aircraft to its operating fleet that had been previously sub-leased to Oman Air to support the new routes.