Kenya Airways said on Tuesday it aims to raise at least $500 million by the first quarter of 2026 to modernize and expand its fleet, after reporting a steep first-half loss.
🔔 Stay updated on African Capital Markets – follow us on WhatsApp.
The airline, one of Africa’s three biggest carriers, posted a pretax loss of 12.17 billion shillings ($94.3 million) for the first six months of 2025, compared with a profit of 634 million shillings a year earlier. Revenue fell to 74.5 billion shillings from 91.5 billion in the same period of 2024.
CEO Allan Kilavuka attributed the weak performance to three Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners being grounded for maintenance. He said the full fleet is expected to be back in service next year and that the funding plan would be presented to shareholders by March 2026.
After more than a decade of losses, Kenya Airways had returned to profitability in 2024, reporting a pretax profit of 5.53 billion shillings, boosted by large foreign-exchange gains as the Kenyan shilling strengthened against the dollar.
On Wednesday, Kenya Airways’ shares slumped 19.8%, a day after the airline announced its half-year loss. The stock closed at 4 shillings, down from 4.99 shillings on Tuesday, with trading volumes more than doubling to 1.29 million shares from 558,080 the previous day.
