Asia’s largest low-cost carrier, Air Asia, made history, on 15 November, when its first African flight landed in Nairobi.
Kuala Lumpur-based AirAsia X operated its inaugural service to Nairobi, Kenya, on Friday 15 November.
The flight was operated with an Airbus A330-300, seating up to 285 passengers.
INAUGURAL AIR ASIA FLIGHT TO NAIROBI
On arrival in Nairobi, the fight was met by dignitaries as well as representatives from the airline and tourism sector.
Flight D7 101, departed Kuala Lumpur at 19:41 and landed in Kenya’s capital at 23:00 – after an 8-hour, 18-minute flight.
After a 90-minute turnaround, flight D7 102 set off from Jomo Kenyatta Airport en route to KL – with a journey time of 9 hours and 16 minutes on the Eastbound route.
AviationAtoZ reports that this new service also operated with good load factors – 90% on the outbound route and 70% on the inbound route.
HISTORIC MOMENT FOR AIR ASIA
Nairobi is AirAsia X’s first destination in Africa.
Despite previously operating flights to Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, Air Asia had not offered flights to mainland Africa.
It launched the Mauritius route in 2016 but terminated these flights in 2017.
The airline then announced the launch of its first Africa route in June this year, at the AviaDev conference in Windhoek, Namibia.
BOOSTING TOURISM
Air Asia intends to offer travellers from within Asia a reliable low-cost option to and from Kenya.
This new direct service has the potential to make Africa more affordable for passengers in Malaysia, China, South Korea, Japan, India and other Asia Pacific countries.
In fact, Kenya has already surpassed the number of tourists it had hoped to receive for this year. This figure was 3 million visitors.
The East African country, known for its safari tourism, intends to welcome 5 million visitors annually by 2027.
With these new direct flights from Malaysia, the figure looks ever more achievable since Air Asia makes travel to East Africa more affordable with this service.
“We will hit our target way, way before 2027,” Rebecca Miano, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife, said.
AIR ASIA NAIROBI FLIGHT SCHEDULE
D7 101 departs Kuala Lumpur at 19.00 and arrives at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport at 23.00.
D7 102 is scheduled to depart from Nairobi at 00:30 and will arrive in KL at 15:10.
The scheduled service will in fact operate four times each week.
If there is sufficient demand the airline says it will operate the route daily.
In addition, Air Asia is also looking at launching flights to Cape Town and Johannesburg in 2025.
