By December 2023, the National Treasury intends to stop providing Kenya Airways with multibillion-dollar bailouts and replace them with a financing strategy that will enable the national airline to become profitable.
Treasury CS Njuguna Ndung'u stated in the draft 2023–24 budget policy statement that the government will create a turnaround plan for the cash-strapped carrier that excludes operational support for the aviation sector.
The announcement stated that a finance plan independent of operational support from the exchequer after December 2023 would be a crucial component of the strategy.
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Since 2012, Kenya Airways has been in the red and has required multibillion-shilling State bailouts to keep running.
The financial instability of the national carrier was made worse by a decline in travel during the Covid-19 pandemic.
With rising income, the airline could slough off part of the Covid-19 ruins in the first half of 2022, reducing losses from Sh11.5 billion to Sh9.9 billion.
Despite this, it has continued to operate in the red, prompting Treasury to propose a further State bailout of Sh34.9 billion for the airline in the 2022–23 supplementary budget to pay off its debts.
President William Ruto announced the government's plan to sell its 48.9% ownership in Kenya Airways to Delta Air Lines in December of last year, which prompted the decision to reduce government bailouts of KQ.
"I'm willing to sell Kenya Airways as a whole."Plc," Ruto told Bloomberg News on the sidelines of the US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington DC in December. "I don't run an airline with only a Kenyan flag; that's not what I do. That's not my business."
Before now, Delta expressed interest in some of Kenya's air traffic.
In the US, Ruto stated that "discussions with Delta are at a preliminary level."
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