No Plane, No Payment: Treasury Must Release Kenya Airways Money One Jet at a TimeNo Plane, No Payment: Treasury Must Release Kenya Airways Money One Jet at a Time

We support keeping the national carrier flying. We do not support paying for it on trust. The Treasury, which owns 48.9% of the airline, should release this money one aircraft at a time, against a published list of grounded jets, their repair costs and the dates they return to service, and it should publish that list by 15 November 2026.

KSh 45.40B for repairs, with no repair list

The facts are not in dispute. On 9 October the Cabinet approved KSh 45.40B ($350M) in shareholder loans for Kenya Airways, to be paid in stages over as long as 10 years under Treasury oversight, as Mwenendo reported when Cabinet cleared the KSh 45.40B. Reuters reported the same terms, citing President William Ruto's office.

Four days later the airline said the money would go on repairing and maintaining ageing aircraft rather than on new jets, as Mwenendo reported in Kenya Airways' repair plan. How many aircraft are grounded, what each repair will cost and how long the work will take have not been made public.

That gap is the whole problem. A loan this size, to a company with this record, cannot be judged by its total. It can only be judged by what each tranche buys.

A KSh 15.92B loss on KSh 81B of revenue

Kenya Airways is not short of passengers. First-half revenue reached KSh 81B ($624.37M), yet the pre-tax loss widened to KSh 15.92B ($122.72M) from KSh 12.17B ($93.81M) a year earlier, according to its interim results. Fuel, maintenance and the cost of the dollar ate the gains.

A jet on the ground still costs money in parking, crew and lease payments while earning nothing. Returning aircraft to service is a sensible use of cash. We accept the airline's logic. What we do not accept is that the public should take the result on faith.

There is a second measure in the same Cabinet decision. The government endorsed a plan to turn KSh 122B (about $940M) in old state loans, plus interest, into a tradable instrument that could become shares. If that happens, taxpayers swap a claim to be repaid on a date for a claim on profits that the airline has not yet produced. That is a large bet, and it should be made in the open.

The confidentiality objection does not hold

The airline and its advisers will say that publishing aircraft-by-aircraft costs would weaken their hand with lessors and maintenance firms. Some line items may indeed be sensitive.

But the answer is aggregation, not secrecy. The Treasury can publish the number of aircraft to be repaired by type, the total budget for each type, and the target month each will fly again. Kenya Airways is listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange and already reports to its shareholders. The public is its largest shareholder, and now a major lender too.

The airline also argues that the state has a wider stake: Cabinet put its contribution to the economy at more than KSh 167.70B ($1.30B) a year. We agree that the stake is real. That is exactly why the money should be tied to results the public can see.

Treasury should pay by the plane

We call on the National Treasury to do three things before any of the KSh 45.40B is drawn, and no later than 15 November 2026.

First, publish the financing terms: the interest rate, the repayment schedule and the conditions under which the loan can be converted into shares.

Second, publish the repair list: how many aircraft are out of service, the repair budget for each aircraft type and the date each is due back in the air.

Third, link every tranche to that list. When an aircraft returns to service on schedule, the next tranche flows. When it does not, the money stops until the airline explains why.

We also call on Parliament's Public Investments Committee to hold a public session with the Treasury and Kenya Airways' board before the end of November, so that MPs who approve the budget can see what they are funding.

Mwenendo's test for the next tranche

This is not hostility to Kenya Airways. Mwenendo has traced a decade of capital infusions into the carrier, each sold as the step that would finally steady it. Each time, the public was asked to judge the rescue by its size rather than by its results.

This time the test should be simple and visible. Planes in the air, on the dates promised, for the money released. If the Treasury cannot meet that standard, it should not be signing the cheque.

The airline's own financial results page is where the next half-year will show whether the repairs worked. Kenyans deserve to know what they paid for long before then.