Kenya Airways plans to add Boeing 777-300 to London route in July
Grounded Boeing 787-8s affected performance due to supply chain issues
Increased demand from Europe, US and Asia due to Middle East conflict
Adds details on fleet addition
By George Obulutsa
NAIROBI, March 24 (Reuters) - Kenya Airways KQNA.NR on Tuesday reported a pre-tax loss of 17.93 billion shillings ($138.30 million) in 2025 on lower revenue, and said it aimed to boost performance by adding an extra aircraft to its London Heathrow route in July.
The result is a setback for one of Africa's leading airlines, as it made its first pre-tax profit in more than a decade in 2024.
The airline, which has a fleet of roughly 40 aircraft, said total revenue fell 14% to 161.47 billion shillings last year, reflecting an 18% reduction in capacity.
Acting CEO George Kamal said the airline was also looking to add Boeing 777 freighters to its fleet to increase haulage capacity by 250 tons by the end of 2026.
Chief Financial Officer Mary Mwenga said the company's weaker 2025 performance was partly caused by three of its wide-body Boeing BA.N 787-8 Dreamliner jets getting temporarily grounded because of global supply chain constraints.
The airline's 2024 profit was helped by foreign-exchange gains, as the shilling currency KES= strengthened more than 20% against the dollar that year.
On Monday, Kenya Airways said demand for seats on its flights had surged due to the effects of war in the Middle East, with most of the gains coming from Europe, the U.S. and Asia.
"We took advantage of the current situation and mainly rerouted a lot of customers from Europe. Instead of re-routing through the Gulf, they are back to reroute through Kenya, through our hub in Nairobi," Kamal said.
($1 = 129.6500 Kenyan shillings)
(Reporting by George Obulutsa;Editing by Alexander Winning and Tomasz Janowski)
((george.obulutsa@thomsonreuters.com; Reuters Messaging: george.obulutsa.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net/))