National carrier Kenya Airways will bounce back to profitability in twelve to 18 months time, according to its Managing Director Mbuvi Ngunze.
Mr Mbuvi was speaking to CNN’s Eleni Giokos on Tuesday morning after the Airline officially launched its first flight to Cape Town, South Africa, becoming the first African airline to directly connect Livingstone to Cape Town.
Mbuvi said the operations of the airline had improved significantly since they began the ongoing restructuring excercise. The airline is expected to cut its losses and revive the lost investor confidence as it releases its 2015/2016 full year results on Thursday Morning.
Brighter outlook
“The quality of our results is going to change year on year, we will come back to profitability in twelve to eighteen months as we reorganize our business. We’ve cut capacity but we are still flying the same routes that we were flying so we are utilizing our assets more,” Said Ngunze
Whereas in the past the company’s management was criticised at times for being over ambitious, the company has now become stricter about setting realistic goals which are more achievable.
“In five years we want to establish a leaner business,really focused on growing the density of african traffic, which contributes to over sixty per cent of our revenue. We want to grow the density of traffic in Africa.” he said.
READ; Kenya Airways receives Ksh 10B soft loan from Govt ahead of results release
Mr Ngunze, who also sits as the chairman of African Airlines Associations said his agenda is to push to see much more cooperation across Africa in terms of using capacity effectively between Airlines in operating in the continent.
Early this year‚ Kenya Airways announced several flight changes that are expected to boost connectivity in Africa by at least 20% through Nairobi.
Share Price
At the stock market, investors have welcomed the focused strategy. They have boosted Kenya Airways share price to a six week high of Ksh 4.60. (+24.32%) as shown in the chart below.
Sources; Kenyan Wall Street, CNN, FT
