Kenya Airways (KQ) has issued a stark profit warning for the financial year ending December 2025, projecting that earnings will fall by at least 25 percent compared with 2024. The warning, made public on 28 November 2025 by the airline’s board, highlights significant operational and external pressures undermining performance.
“The Board brings to the attention of the public that the earnings for the current financial year 2025 are expected to be lower by at least 25% than the earnings reported for the same period in FY2024. This announcement is based on the forecasted financial results of the Group for the year ending 31st December 2025,” Kenya airways said in a statement.
Despite a global aviation sector recovery and strong passenger demand, particularly on international routes, Kenya Airways has been hit hard by a combination of grounded aircraft, global supply-chain constraints, and aircraft shortages.
Three of the airline’s Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft, representing 33 percent of its wide-body fleet, remain grounded. The capacity reduction has led to a drop in available seats and dampened passenger numbers, a primary driver of the profit warning.
The airline’s board, in a statement dated 28 November 2025, attributed the shortfall to “engine availability challenges, persistent spare parts global supply-chain constraints as well as aircraft shortages in the market.”
The trouble at Kenya Airways reflects broader systemic issues in global aviation, where the industry still grapples with shortages of aircraft and critical spare parts. Even as air travel recovers from the pandemic slump and demand surges on international routes, airlines are hampered by supply-chain constraints.
These headwinds come at a time when demand, especially internationally, remains buoyant. The dissonance between demand and the airline’s constrained capacity has thus created a “perfect storm” for reduced profitability.
In response to the looming shortfall, the board of Kenya Airways emphasised its commitment to stabilising operations through a multipronged approach. These measures include:
Returning grounded aircraft to service as soon as maintenance and parts become available.
Implementation of cost-reduction strategies across operations.
Pursuing new partnerships and capital-raising initiatives aimed at strengthening liquidity and restoring financial health.
“The Board and Management remain committed to recovery efforts, including returning grounded aircraft to service, cost reduction and executing partnerships and capital-raising initiatives aimed at stabilizing operations and improving the Company’s financial performance,” the airline added
Kenya Airways achieved a record-breaking after-tax profit of KShs 5.4 billion for the financial year ended 31 December 2024, a significant improvement of KShs 28 billion from a loss of KShs 22.6 billion reported in the previous year.
A big driver of the improved performance in 2024 was foreign-exchange gains of 10.55 billion shillings, versus a loss of 15.04 billion shillings in 2023, as the local currency strengthened more than 20% against the dollar last year.
Operating profit for the year rose to 16.62 billion shillings from 10.53 billion shillings in 2023, helped by higher revenues and lower costs.
Kenya Airways fell into insolvency in 2018 after an expansion drive left it with hundreds of millions of dollars of debt. It has been dependent on state financial support, with the government paying off a loan of $150 million in January that the airline had received from local commercial banks.
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