Kenya Airlines Makes its First Profit from Operations in Seven Years.

Kenya Airways, the ailing national carrier of Kenya, announced on Tuesday that it had turned a profit in 2023—its first in seven years.

With an operating deficit of 5.6 billion shillings in 2022, the sum of 10.5 billion Kenyan shillings (about $80 million) for the year ended December 31 signals a remarkable turnaround, and chairman Michael Joseph hailed it as a “significant milestone”.

The airline claimed in a statement that their loss after tax had decreased to over 23 billion shillings from more than 38 billion shillings the previous year. The Kenyan government is the airline’s largest stakeholder.

According to its audited results statement, the airline primarily credited its 53 percent increase in total income to 178 billion shillings during the year to a 35 percent increase in passenger numbers to 5.04 million.

Kenya Airways, like the aviation industry as a whole, was severely impacted by the Covid-19 outbreak and has been operating at a loss for years despite multiple government bailouts.

“These figures highlight the airline’s remarkable performance over the year and provide encouraging signs of continued recovery within the air transportation sector,” Joseph said in a press release.

“They also confirm the operational viability of the airline business and demonstrate that the management’s ongoing efforts to restore profitability are yielding positive results.”

The completion of a “capital restructuring plan whose main objectives are to reduce the company’s financial leverage and increase liquidity” is the company’s immediate emphasis, according to CEO Allan Kilavuka.

Kenya Airways is owned by the government to the tune of 48.9 percent; Air France-KLM holds 7.8 percent.

After East African Airways went out of business in 1977, the airline was established, and it currently travels to 45 locations worldwide, with 37 of those being in Africa.