Direct flights from Kenya to US next?

Photo/FILE

Under earlier plans, Delta flights would leave Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta to the Jomo Kenyatta International in Nairobi, via Dakar, Senegal.

Delta Airlines is expected to resumes talk with Kenya on introducing a direct flight from Nairobi to the United States.

Tourism minister Najib Balala said on Tuesday, the United States Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood will arrive in Nairobi on September 30 to spearhead the talks.

“The government will be hosting him at the end of this month and we are upbeat that this will be the final meeting,” said Mr Balala.

In June 2009, a similar plan for direct flights between the two countries was shelved because the US government decided Kenya was not safe.

Kenya has since ironed out the security fears and the on going renovation of the airport is part of the move to address those fears.

Under the earlier plans, Delta flights would leave Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta to the Jomo Kenyatta International in Nairobi, via Dakar, Senegal.

A direct flight will be a shot in the arm for tourism which is seeking to increase visitors from the US. The US is among Kenya’s key source of tourists that had declined, even as other regions recovered.

The ministry data shows that tourist arrivals from China in the first half of 2011 rose 28 per cent to 15,139. The Tourism ministry says US direct flights would help increase tourists.

In the first six months of the year, arrivals to Kenya marginally declined by 1.4 per cent to 65,889.

The country hopes to double the number of tourists from the US and increase its organic food and flower exports. “Lack of a direct flight is part of the reason behind this decline,” said Mr Balala.

Currently, most people flying to and from the US go through London or West Africa. A direct flight will also reignite Kenya’s hopes of building its trade profile with the US under the Africa Growth and Opportunities Act.

Kenya’s sale of flowers, organic foods and black tea in the US is negligible, partly because of lack of direct flights yet the market is large.

But it is widely seen as a move by the US government to solidify its trade with the region at a time its ties have been weakening as Kenya warms up to the East.