How has been the growth of Kenya Airways in India?
The load factor has improved by 10% and we have an average load factor of 80% and during peak periods, it is 90%. Even during the low season our load factor is around 70%. The leisure segment of the market is what we are interested in and I come from a background of tourism. Currently, leisure travel amounts to 15% of our total business. I have a passion for tours and that's what we are looking at promoting in Kenya as Kenya has lots to offer especially for lovers of wildlife. Besides leisure travellers, 30% are business travellers, 15% are the VFR (Visiting Friends and Relatives) and 10% are traders. Seamen travellers are around 10% and labour constitutes about 20%. So we have a good mix of travellers.

What are the plans of expansions?
If the bilaterals are agreed upon, we can increase our capacity and even bring a 777 into Mumbai. Last year we increased our routes and this included 6 different destinations which are Djibouti, Lubumbashi, Maputo, Dakar, Bamako, Istanbul in Turkey as well as Guangzhou in China. In the coming year too, we are looking at adding atleast 6 more destinations, definitely having more routes and connect as many cities in Africa as possible. It is Kenya Airways vision to provide that bridge of providing links to maximum cities in Africa. Even on the Cargo front, Kenya has done exceptionally well and last year we grew by 47% and even exceeded the passenger growth and in India we are short of capacity. The demand outstrips the capacity and hence we are keen on finalizing a bilateral sooner than ever.

What are the initiatives you have taken to see that the leisure segment grows in the coming years?
Kenya and Africa offers tremendous opportunities for the leisure travellers and we have seen this segment growing by 35 to 40 percent in the last couple of years. Our financial year begins in April and we plan for the entire year by starting to visit the entire country as well as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh which also comes under my purview. In all our trips our endeavor is to have product presentations for the travel agents. It is through them we can reach the consumer and we want to position Africa as one of the most preferred destinations for travellers from India and the Indian subcontinent.

Here, an interesting point to note is that a lot of Indians are attracted to Far East due to the low prices. However, what they should realize is that the rates offered are on bed only basis and at times bed and breakfast only basis. So if a passenger goes to Singapore, he will have to pay optional extras to visit Sentosa Island or a Night Safari and so on. So, if you add all the optional costs and compare that to the cost of a Kenya holiday which is invariably on a full board basis, you will realize that there is hardly any difference in pricing and travel to East Africa is not expensive. So we want to enlighten the consumers through travel agents that the package to Kenya may sound expensive but this figure is inclusive as you pay only once for the entire trip comprising of your meals, sightseeing, wildlife safaris and transportation as well and you don't have to pay anything else except for your drinks and personal expenses.

Kenya Airways not only caters to leisure travellers to Kenya but also to other destinations in the African continent and onwards into Europe as well. Kenya is strategically located in the Eastern part of Africa and a large number of leisure travellers prefer using Nairobi as a hub to visit destinations in South Africa as well as Egypt as there is less of back tracking and today the trend is to do a combi, do your safari in Kenya and then proceed to South Africa and visit Capetown and do the Garden route starting from Capetown and ending in George or Port Elizabeth. Then you can come to Johannesburg and do Sun City and then move on to Kenya and then fly back home. When you do this combination, your price component for the ticket is drastically reduced and you get excellent value for money.

We also fly into Kinshasa, Lubumbashi and Kigali. From Kigali, the eastern part of Zaire has hardly been explored and this is the area which has the last bastion of the Gorilla population, the mountain gorillas and this is a threatened species. You will find this at the Virunga National Park which is located on the border of Rwanda and Uganda and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This is a region close to Goma, Eastern Zaire and is an excellent place for trekking and it is too nascent for this market. A lot of charters for the European travellers leave from Nairobi into Goma. We also have flights to Harare from where you can visit the Victoria Falls, known as the Thundering Cloud because of the immense falls.

Our only limitation here is that we are limited by the bilateral agreements because it restricts our equipment to Boeing 767 operations that too only Mumbai where we fly 7 days a week. Ideally, we would like to fly from as many points as possible out of India and for that a bilateral has to be signed and we are optimistic that we can grow this leisure industry. At the same time we have to be cautious that we do not kill the infrastructure as is a situation in India where hotels are full most of the time. We foresee a growth of 30 to 35 % .

What our general observation is that people travelling to East Africa and Kenya are the mature travellers. They have gone to Far East, Europe, Australia and New Zealand and now they want altogether a different travel experience. We've also had a couple of schools who have travelled and these are students who wish to study about nature. We also see a growing trend of the off beat traveller, who knows, you may have Indians who also would like to be more adventurous and climb Mount Kilimanjaro.We would like to see Kenya Tourism Board coming to India more often and have a representation of KTB in India to introduce new avenues of travel like cultural safaris, tours to Lake Baringo-north of Rift Valley where you can find 432 species of birds. At one time, it recorded the highest species of birds in one location anywhere in the world. Then there are farming visits, as Kenya is also having lot of agricultural areas. We also want to encourage travel of the business community from India especially to bring in farming technology to address the drought crisis which is a problem in rural areas. The only thing lacking in Kenya is water that would help flourish the agriculture. We would like to encourage expertise from India to help us to address these issues.

Are there lots of Kenyans coming to India?
From Kenya, a majority of visitors coming to India are coming for Medical tourism which is growing in India. A large number of travellers are primarily traders and VFR travellers and community travel is frequent as well. There are lots of students who come to India to study as well. Creating awareness about India in Kenya is also important to attract more travellers to India.

Which are the places you have visited within India?
I loved the Red Fort, the Taj Mahal in Agra. Although I would love to see the Bengal Tigers. Where ever I have travelled in India, I have met wonderful people and I am impressed with the high degree of professionalism in the trade.

Thirdly, most of the people are very lean bodied due to the frequent running as well as the dietary aspect as they only feed on milk and a lot of meat and green which gives them the ideal balance. Interestingly, the school I went to, to complete my A levels, it is called St. Patrick's High School and is in the Guinness Book of World Records for having produced the highest number of record breakers in the world for cross country, marathon and any long distance racing event. So running is a habit, it's in our culture and in the olden days as a child, one used to run and not walk. It was instilled into us since childhood. And each year there are new world champions. Take for instance, the person who won this year's Mumbai Marathon was not there last year. So you have new winners every year and for several such events across the globe, you always have someone new coming out as a champion. The common thing as you rightly said is that most of them happen to be Kenyans. It requires a lot of discipline, rigorous training and conditioning of body is the key to achieve success.

What is your message to readers and why Kenya Airways should be their preferred carrier to Africa ?
Let's take the opportunity that is available for you to travel to Africa as a value for money destination. Basically, it would be great to have a lot of visitors between our two countries and let us encourage that. Kenya Airways is a fast growing airline and we have continued to experience profitability year after year. Last year we recorded 38% growth in revenue. This year our half yearly growth is 48%. We also completed our IOSA (IATA Operation Safety Audit) and we are the second African carrier after Egypt Air to have completed this audit which is undertaken by IATA itself and it has taken around 15 months to achieve this. So it is a very rigorous exercise. Having achieved IOSA accreditation which we took voluntarily, to tell the world that we are a safe carrier. Safety for us is critical in our operation.

 This is critical as without the knowledge, exposure and personal experience, it would be very difficult to sell Africa to the Indian traveller.

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