Kenya Airways chairman prepares exit ahead of pilot walkout

Kenya Airways Chairman Dennis Awori said he plans to leave Africa’s third-largest airline after a pilots union called for a seven-day strike to protest against his employment and the position of CEO Mbuvi Ngunze. “‘I see myself leaving, yes,” Awori said Thursday. “I have begun the turnaround and honestly Kenya Airways needs somebody who has much more time than I have.” The Kenya Airline Pilots Association is demanding the resignation of the two executives, saying they aren’t capable of executing a financial recovery of the unprofitable carrier, which is part-owned by Air France-KLM. Similar industrial action by KALPA in April cost Kenya Airlines $2m in a day, the airline said. The strike is due to start Oct. 18. “The threatened action is already costing Kenya Airways significant losses as passengers have begun to make cancellations,” the airline said. The costs associated with selling flights and then not carrying passengers will be too great a financial burden, the carrier said, meaning it will have to halt ticket sales unless the strike is called off. The timing of Awori’s planned departure hasn’t been decided, the chairman said. He didn’t comment on Ngunze’s future. Halting ticket sales “means management would be preparing for an extended strike period,” Eric Musau, an analyst at Standard Investment Bank, said by phone from the capital, Nairobi. “The best case is for them to agree on some sort of settlement. I’m not really sure it is for the pilots union to say whether management should go or not.”<br/>