Mohammed Hersi . A hotelier passionate about Tourism & Governance in Africa

Ethiopian has just a announced 10 new destination in six months . This is good stuff and I am very happy for our northern neighbour Ethiopia. I am sure many of us will be quick to condemn KQ. Please don’t.

KQ is now in safe pair of hands, so what next?

Big up to our govermrnet for coming to help KQ after a decade of bad governance. If our national carrier KQ is to do well then more support is needed at Operational level and they MUST be treated as the favourite airline at our JKIA hub. If you study Ethiopian , they’ve done well no doubt but the amount of support they get in a virtually closed aviation industry in Ethiopia cannot be compared to KQ. Aviation business is cut throat . I am afraid KQ does not seem to enjoy such preferential treatment. If we add the operational hiccups at our main hub then it just takes way the only major edge they would have had over the competition.

KQ team is more than ready to launch new routes that make commercial sense but they will need full support to acquire new planes.

KQ has been in clean up mode and addressing it’s huge debt portfolio which has now been sorted out. Next is to help them acquire new planes for new routes and also regain its lost market share on the African continent .

The constant litigation and never ending CBA wars is something that has constantly distracted our national carrier. Labour issues is something that never bedevil Ethiopian. We may be more capitalistic in nature but many a times we go overboard to the point of self cannibalizing.

KQ has done very well in the past and I believe we can do it again more so when someone like Michael Joseph is at the helm as chair and Sebastian as the CEO.

Basic support at JKIA must be there if we ever expect them to match Ethiopian. KQ despite all the challenges they fly in the largest number of visitors to Kenya. It is in our best interest that we have a working airline .

Please note I am NOT taking anything away from Ethiopian . They have done really well for themselves.

As always I choose to remain an optimist

Mohammed Hersi
Chairman
Kenya Tourism Federation.