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{
    "id": 615225,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/615225/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 45,
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    "content": "us must have experienced it – there have been tremendous delays and cancellation of flights by the Kenya Airways. According to the Kenya Airways management, the delays and cancellation of flights are because of a crisis with its pilots. A good management team cannot, possibly, give this as a reason for cancellation of flights. If you know that it is because of disagreements with your pilots and they are key to your operations, you should move as fast as possible to settle the causes of the disagreement. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, it should not last the company more than a few days or weeks to sort out that problem. It is like the Kenyan Government sitting back and saying that schools are closed because of disagreements with teachers and doing nothing about it. We found that excuse not tolerable. We believe that cancellation of flights – if, indeed, it is caused by pilots – is solvable very quickly. The airline should not inconvenience passengers and make losses because of simple disagreements with pilots over terms of service, pay and conditions of service. Secondly, flight disruptions caused by infrastructural problems like the extension of the runway is something that is also not excusable because when that is being done, it affects other airlines as well. It is not the national flag carrier which should suffer the inconveniences without making appropriate adjustment and frequency of their flights so that the passengers do not suffer. This is because when passengers suffer, they take off to other airlines. The third issue is what we have in our appendices. Most Members have this information because it has been in the public domain. The cost of Kenya Airways tickets compared to other airlines is not excusable. Many people now prefer to travel to Dar-es- Salaam via Addis Ababa because the tickets are cheaper. Many people prefer to fly to Addis Ababa and then fly to London because Ethiopian Airlines’ tickets are cheaper. I have done it before. If that is happening, then, the concept of having a hub in Nairobi to the advantage of the Kenya Airways is defeated. If it is the question of pricing our tickets to be competitive with other airlines, that is a management, marketing and commercial issue. It cannot go on for many years and the Kenya Airways does nothing about it. Therefore, we have recommended very strongly in our Report that the non-competitiveness of our ticketing system must be rectified. It can only be rectified if we have a commercial and marketing manager who can properly study the market and present the airline with a model of ticketing and pricing that will make full use of the hub concept and be competitive with other airlines. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I will not dwell much on the human resources issues. They are detailed with unions and so on. I know members of the Legal Affairs and Human Rights sub-committee will go into it. Let me now go into another issue which is very important. That is, injecting capital into the airline. I gave you the shareholding of the airline earlier and as we sit here today, our Government is the single majority shareholder in the airline followed by KLM, individuals – I gave the percentage – and then the International Financing Corporation (IFC). The IFC with 9 per cent shareholding is now claiming that they want to be members of the Board on the basis of the fact that 9 per cent shareholding. On this basis and because the IFC was there at the beginning when Project Mawingu was being conceived, it supported and encouraged it. Indeed, we have letters and documents where The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}