Kenya Airways records profit after more than a decade of losses

NAIROBI: Kenya Airways said on Tuesday that it had made a pretax profit last year after more than a decade of losses, helped by foreign-exchange gains.

One of Africa’s biggest airlines, its pretax profit was 5.53 billion shillings ($42.82 million) in 2024, compared with a loss of 22.86 billion shillings the year before.

The airline had been in the red since 2013.

“I think we can be proud that the national carrier has produced a profit,” Michael Joseph, chairman of the airline’s board of directors, told a briefing.

A big driver of the improved performance in 2024 was foreign-exchange gains of 10.55 billion shillings, versus a loss of 15.04 billion shillings in 2023, as the local currency strengthened more than 20% against the dollar last year.

Operating profit for the year rose to 16.62 billion shillings from 10.53 billion shillings in 2023, helped by higher revenues and lower costs.

Kenya Airways fell into insolvency in 2018 after an expansion drive left it with hundreds of millions of dollars of debt.

The collapse in international travel during the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with a sharp weakening of the shilling over 2022-2023 and higher interest rates, made it more difficult to service that debt.

It has been dependent on state financial support, with the government paying off a loan of $150 million in January that the airline had received from local commercial banks.

The government has said Kenya’s biggest international airport in Nairobi is operating above capacity and needs modernising.

Kenya Airways chairman Joseph said on Tuesday that improvements at the airport and more aircraft in the airline’s fleet would further boost its performance.