Kenya Airways this week announced its business results for 2021, recording a strong recovery in passenger operations along with a significant improvement in financial performance, by posting a much-reduced loss of US $145 million for 2021 (2020: US$ 341.6 million).
The airline carried 2.2 million passengers in 2021, with an average seat load factor of 60.8% as demand peaked during the December holiday period.
The airline recorded a particularly strong surge in passenger volumes in Q4 following the September relaxation of mandatory quarantine periods.
However, the resurgence of COVID-19 in the form of new variants lead to more travel restrictions in addition to fuel price volatility, which further compounded the situation with the Brent Crude prices rising from an average of USD 42 per barrel in 2020 to an average of USD 71 per barrel in 2021, representing a mean increase of 69% year on year, the airline said. These two external factors dampened a very promising upswing in Q4 of 2021.
Accelerated vaccine rollout in parts of Europe, North America, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia led to the lifting of some travel restrictions. However, the vaccination rollout in many developing economies was very slow, a factor that constrained recovery. Kenya’s total vaccination rate as of December 2021 stood at approximately. 7.5% of the total population. Africa’s rate was 9.12%, with the global average being 49.38% showing a demonstrable relationship between passenger demand and the vaccination rate.
Network capacity came in at 5,900 million – measured in Available Seat Kilometres (ASK) – compared to 5,292 million reported in 2020, and a decrease of 11.5% in a load factor of 60.8% compared to 65.3% in the previous year 2020.
The Kenyan airline operated 16% more frequencies in 2021 compared to 2020, with 25% more passenger traffic than the previous year, while achieving an impressive On-Time Performance (OTP) of 84%, an improvement of 13 percentage points over 2020.
Cargo operations meanwhile continued to outperform expectations, as revenue stood at Kshs. 13,433 million ($113,646) showing a marked improvement of 49% compared to 2020.
This improved performance was supported by high global demand and increased cargo uplift capacity following the second B787 Preighter repurposing in February 2021 that saw a monthly KQ Cargo increment of 500 Metric.
As operations progressively ramped up throughout Kenya Airways maintained an absolute focus on cost control, innovation and partnerships.
The total direct operating costs amounted to KShs 41,155) million for the year ended 31 December 2021 at the Group level and KShs 37,928 million at the Company level as compared to KShs 30,962 million at the Group level and KShs. 29,078 million at the Company level for the year ended 31 December.
Overall, KQ’s total revenue during the year increased by 33% to Kshs. 70,221 million, driven by the easing of travel restrictions in some key markets.
The Group uplifted a total of 2.2 million passengers during the year, a 25% increase compared to the year 2020, but 57% lower than 2019, while the cargo business uplifted 63,726 tonnes, recording an improvement of 29% over 2020.
