NAIROBI: Kenya Airways reported a pretax loss of 12.5 billion shillings ($140 million) in the first half of the year, citing a drop in tourism and the halting of routes to Ebola-hit nations in west Africa, its finance director said on Thursday.
The carrier, which is part-owned by Air-France KLM , said it had seen lower passenger yields during the period and higher fleet costs. Kenya's tourism industry has been struggling in the wake of a spate of attacks by Islamic militants, including an attack last year on Nairobi's upscale Westgate mall that left dozens dead, and violence near the Indian Ocean resorts of Mombasa and Lamu.
The discontinuation of two routes to Liberia and Sierra Leone due to Ebola also hurt its performance, the company told an investor briefing.
Available capacity during the period jumped 15.2 percent due to modernisation of the carrier's fleet while seat sales climbed 5.2 percent.
"The uptake of that capacity has been lagging a little bit," the airline's finance director Alex Mbugua said.
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