Kenya’s Jambojet to Double its Passengers in 3 Years

The Kenya Airways owned Jambojet is opening new routes in East Africa and increasing its flights in a bid to more than double its annual passengers to 1.5 million in the next three years.

The carrier, which is Kenya’s first low-cost airline, ferries 700,000 passengers a year within Kenya and Uganda but it now plans to start flights to South Sudan, Rwanda, Tanzania, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Comoros.

So far, the company has received clearance by the Rwanda Civil Aviation Authority and rights fly to Goma in Democratic Republic of Congo, Mogadishu in Somalia and Bujumbura in Burundi.

“We are pleased to have received this approval. Kigali is one of the routes we have been pursuing in our expansion plan. Once we have everything in place, we will begin operations,” Jambojet’s Chairman Vincent Rague said.

“We have been given the go-ahead by Kenya Civil Aviation Authority to fly to many of these destinations. We are waiting for the rights to Juba in South Sudan, Comoros, Mwanza and Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Zanzibar,” Allan Kivaluka, Jambojet’s CEO, said during the unveiling of a new Jambojet Dash8-Q400, Kongoti, with an 82-seat capacity last week.

Jambojet operates six De Havilland Q-400 planes and plans to get three more by the end of the year. The new acquisition comes even as the carrier also plans to boost daily usage of its planes from eight hours to 10 or 13 hours, a move that would give it excess capacity airlines capacity, and reduce fuel costs by 25 per cent, as it looks to expand its wings across Africa.

The carrier’s fleet has an average age of 3.7 years, making it the airline with the youngest fleet in Africa and across the world. Globally, the average age of aircraft flying is 12 years. In August, Jambojet was ranked top airline in Africa with the youngest fleet in a report by global aviation intelligence provider, ch-aviatio.

Passengers flying with Jambojet only pay for seats and an extra charge for services such as baggage and meals, allowing ticket prices to compete with buses and trains.

“People like this model, they are flying this model,” Kilavuka told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday. He also added that the airline has grown traffic by a compounded annual rate of 25%, giving it a modest return.

“We are profitable. The margins are very thin given the costs that we have to incur, and the challenge is to maintain this profitability because the industry is volatile.” Kilavuka disclosed.