Virgin to pull out of Kenya
Virgin Atlantic will stop flying to Kenya at the end of the summer, blaming high taxes, soaring fuel costs and a lack of slots at Heathrow for its decision.
The last flight from London to Nairobi will be on September 23 and the last flight from Nairobi will be on September 24.
Chief commercial officer Julie Southern said: "We have taken the difficult decision to withdraw our services between London and Nairobi.
"Despite the best efforts of our employees, external factors including the high price of fuel, increasing aviation taxes in the UK and insufficient passenger numbers throughout the past five years have contributed to the decision."
"These are still challenging times for the airline industry and we have to deploy our aircraft to routes with the right level of demand to be financially viable."
Virgin said that since the service launched in 2007, fuel costs have increased by over 50%. Air Passenger Duty (APD) has more than doubled.
President Sir Richard Branson said: "Virgin Atlantic is extremely sad to be withdrawing from Kenya. During the past five years a combination of record fuel prices, higher and higher taxes imposed by the Government and a poorly timed slot not providing connections from London, have made it uneconomical to fly from Nairobi.
"Governments must be more realistic about the aviation taxes they impose and we urgently need to increase capacity at Heathrow. From this autumn we will be returning to Mumbai and adding an extra flight to New York as operating more commercially viable trans-Atlantic capacity allows us to provide better connections via Heathrow on to our services to Africa and Asia.
"Virgin remains committed to the future of Kenya and it is a well known fact that I love the country and its people. For the past five years our team in Nairobi have worked incredibly hard and we hope to return should the economic situation change."
By Linsey McNeill
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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