A few months to go for Titus

It will be chunky. They grew their fleet by 2-3 planes and opened a few more routes in africa. The result is a total decline in pax volumes. There has been lots of inflation which I doubt they have been able to pass onto passengers. Add in the flight cancellations during the go slow, Egypt air runaway closure, Nigeria upheavels, staff redundancy costs and it certainly looks gloomy! It should also tell us an airline is not a business you add exponential capacity, it's got to be measured and synched to global business cycles.

Here's my humble advice... Don't mess with airline stocks!! bankruptcy is always the end result

KQ was just a beneficiary of the collapse of national airlines around Africa...what happens when most of them are revived? More competition for KQ...the Malawi story points to the future.

Africa, the only region growing at an average of 10% in the world currently. How many African airlines control the air? 4 at a maximum, so even if passengers numbers to and from Europe don't grow...local travel and flights to Asia will continue to grow.

What matters is strategy, what will KQ do to make competition irrelevant while offering their services at a desirable rate to the customer?

1. The number of airlines throwing in the towel is a good sign that competition is feeling the heat.
2. Did I read that Malawi is complaining because their Airline was kicked out of business?
3. The lifestyles of Africans are changing, we all want to get there faster (instant-mentality) soon, many more will be flying rather than taking the long bus ride and if KQ manages to capture this lot(mass market) well then..

For a while now KQ's mgt has been able to effectively use fin strategies to cover themselves from the high fuel prices but have failed badly in customer service and relations.

The airline business is not all bad just incase u wanted another airline example, Southwest..has against all odds managed to stay in the green for 39 years now...and counting. So its all about strategy

www.af.reuters.com/artic...ws/idAFN6E8HE00C20121106

this is even lower than anticipated. KES 6.6B loss is too much. how further down will the stock now sink?

Spot on. KQ does have poor customer service. Most of the staff are nonchalant and apathetic. The CEO has ridden over many storms including two air crashes, that cld have deflated the business basing on a relative small fleet size. He deserves kudos for some things but his sunset days are now here. New floor price of KES 10 is in the offing over the next few days. No one will sell below KES 10.

The stock market doesn't like words like no one, or never

I reckoned the loss would be chunky but not this chunky. It now certainly looks gloomy! It should also tell us an airline is not a business you markets without much homework, it's got to be measured, market driven and synched with capacity growth. it's now clear KQ's route expansion is not very well researched. Most of the airlines making losses make losses in routes they already operate in because of competition and challenge of passing these to passengers. Obviously KQ has limited competition in routes it operates in and can therefore transfer cost pressure to pax easily. Which can only mean KQ is buying planes, opening routes to grow sales without much recourse to the profitability of these routes, AKA buying growth typically what some banks and insurance companies do with branch expansion.

I wish KQ could share high level profitability numbers of the routes they opened from 2006 to date. The ball dropped on or about 2006!

could Naikuni be gambling with passengers lives? link ndio hii. palipo na moshi..
www.the-star.co.ke/news/...kq-buys-planes-tax-haven