Kenya Airways resumes flights to Khartoum

National carrier Kenya Airways #ticker:KQ has resumed flights to Khartoum following a temporary political upheaval in Sudan that has so far led to atleast 100 deaths.

Kenya Airways last week cancelled flights to Sudan after the closure of Khartoum International Airport by the Sudan authorities, barely a few days after the ruling military announced that it had taken over the government.

The cancellation, the second one in less than three months, saw passengers who were due to travel to Khartoum last Monday on KQ348 from Nairobi to Sudan and KQ349 from Khartoum to Nairobi suspended.

Kenya Airways is one of the major carriers operating on the Nairobi to Khartoum route, with daily flights except Mondays and Wednesdays.

It charges passengers about Sh53,608 on return air ticket between the two destinations.

“Kenya Airways is glad to inform all customers and the public that normal operations to and from Khartoum International Airport have now resumed,” said the airline in a public notice Tuesday.

“We continue to closely monitor the security situation in Khartoum. We apologize for any inconvenience caused on the two services we cancelled last week.”

Latest official statistics indicate that Sudan ordered goods worth Sh6.2 billion from Kenya in the 12 months to December 2017, up from Sh5.3 billion in 2016 mostly tea.

But the unprecedented political situation in Khartoum is now likely to see the airline which made a net loss of Sh7.55 billion for the year ended December 2018 take a huge hit.

The ouster of Sudan’s long serving ruler, Omar al–Bashir, after days-long street protests by civilians triggered uncertainty among Kenyan businesses with interests in the eastern Africa nation, which led to closure of its borders and airspace.

Tibor Nagy, the US assistant secretary for Africa is set to visit the war-torn nation this week, to “call for a cessation of attacks against civilians”.

Workers have been staging a national strike, which began on Sunday, mounting pressure to the ruling military government to make way for civilian rule.