Silverstone Rebranding As It Seeks To Shed Negative Publicity

Silverstone Air has announced plans to rebrand, a year after exiting passenger services following questions over safety of its planes.

The carrier in 2019 experienced a series of minor accidents with its planes, forcing it to suspend passenger services.

In October 2019, one of its planes skid off the runway at Wilson Airport injuring two of the 50 passengers on board.

In the same year in November, another passenger plane belonging to the company made an emergency landing at Eldoret International Airport after one of its wheels came off.

Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) then temporarily suspended Silverstone’s Dash 8 fleet for inspection, which seemingly did not yield much.

”Although the regulator gave the fleet a clean bill of health after a week of investigations, we believe that the action was quite unfair and injured our steady reputation in the market,” Silverstone Air management told the Star.

In September 2020, a Silverstone air cargo plane crash-landed in Mogadishu in unclear circumstances.

Silverstone has already notified the regulator of the change of name, and will be known as Jetlite Air Limited.

Read: Silverstone Air Cargo Plane Crash-lands In Mogadishu

The company says by the time it suspended passenger flights it had bookings worth over Ksh100 million, stretching up to 2022.

“We had bookings worth over Ksh100 million stretching into 2022. Most of those who booked directly and online have since been refunded. Those who booked tickets via agents will get refunded by those agents,” said Silverstone Air reservations manager Maureen Bittah.

Silverstone Air Services started as a charter and contract air operator using a Cessna Caravan CE208 to serve northern Kenya destinations and within South Sudan and primarily serving NGOs.

However, in 2017, the company rebranded to Silverstone Air, launching two 50-seater Fokker 50s to serve Kisumu and Ukunda-Diani in October.

The airline has since expanded to coastal destinations of Malindi and Lamu, adding two lease-purchase agreements 37-seater Bombardier Dash 8 Q-100s. These were delivered in November and December 2017 respectively.

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