International and domestic flights began landing and taking off from East Africa’s largest airport in the wee hours of yesterday. One flight had arrived from London at 6:30am at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, or JKIA, while two more flights arrived from Thailand and neighbouring Uganda.
“The situation is getting better… we have resumed full domestic flight operation and have also operating some international flights [on Thursday],” Abraham Joseph, Kenya Airways regional manager for South Asia and the Middle East told Khaleej Times over phone on Thursday. The airline operated flights from Nairobi to London, Amsterdam and Bangkok from yesterday, he added.
Kenya Airways operates 10 weekly flights from Dubai to Nairobi and three flights a week from Abu Dhabi to Nairobi.
The airline cancelled its early-morning Thursday flight.
“We couldn’t operate any flight between Dubai and Nairobi on Wednesday,” Joseph said.
The airline might operate its evening flight from Abu Dhabi to Nairobi today, Joseph said, which is expected to be confirmed within the day. No UAE-based carrier is operating any flight to Nairobi on Thursday, according to the airports’ respective websites. Khaleej Times tried to contact Air Arabia, Emirates and Etihad Airways, but only Etihad responded.
“We operate a daily flight to Nairobi, but there is no flight today [Thursday]. We are planning a flight with a bigger aircraft for Friday, but all depends on a go-ahead signal from civil aviation authorities in Nairobi,” an official spokesperson from Etihad said.
