Kenya Airways makes Sh17.9 billion pre-tax loss in 2025

Kenya Airways makes Sh17.9 billion pre-tax loss in 2025

Kenya Airways on ‌Tuesday reported a pre-tax loss of Sh17.93 billion ($138.30 million) in 2025, hurt by falling revenues.

The result is a setback for one of ⁠Africa’s leading airlines, as it made its first pre-tax profit in more than a decade in 2024.

The airline, which has a fleet of roughly 40 aircraft, said total income fell to 161.47 billion shillings last year from Sh188.50 ‌billion in 2024.

Chief Financial Officer Mary Mwenga said the deterioration in the company’s performance was partly because three of ⁠its wide-body Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner jets were temporarily grounded because of global supply chain constraints.

Its ⁠2024 profit was helped by foreign-exchange gains, as the shilling currency ⁠strengthened more than 20% against the dollar that year.

KQ said despite strong demand for passengers, the airline had insufficient number of operating aircrafts which led to saw passenger revenue decline by 18pc while cargo volume also shrunk by 8pc during the year under review.

“Our financial performance in not where we wanted to be and we take full accountability for that. Even so, 2025 stands out as our third strongest revenue year in the history of Kenya Airways. This is a year defined not by weak demand but by global constraints. The temporary grounding of part of our wide body fleet due to industry wide engine and spare parts shortages significantly reduced our capacity. In a nutshell we had customers ready to travel but fewer aircrafts were available to serve them,” said Kiprono Kittony, KQ Chairman.