Kenya Airways is considering offering higher wages to entice back dozens of engineers who quit the loss-making carrier to join Gulf-based airlines in the past year, its chairman said Friday. The airline, part-owned by the state and part-owned by AirFrance KLM, sank into the red four years ago after tourism slumped following a spate of attacks in Kenya by militants from the Somalia-based al Shabaab Islamist group. Its financial predicament caused salary delays and industrial action, with 70 engineers quitting the carrier to join airlines mainly in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The Kenyan airline currently has about 600 engineers. "We have had an exodus of engineers from Kenya Airways ... We will be looking at some adjustments in packages and things like that to attract them back," chairman Michael Joseph said. He said they were also in discussions with pilots union KALPA to allow them to hire foreign pilots on short-term contracts if the need arises. "We may have a shortage of pilots as well," he said, adding that the firm was seeking to lift the productivity and efficiency of existing pilots.<br/>
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Rock guitarist Rick Derringer told a federal air marshal that he keeps his gun with him on commercial airline flights 30 to 50 times a year, and was only detained last month at Atlanta’s airport near the end of a trip to Mexico, authorities said. Found with a loaded gun in his carry-on bag after stepping off a Delta flight from Cancun, Mexico, he now faces a criminal charge in Atlanta, court records show. Derringer, 69, told the air marshal that having his gun with him has never posed a problem until this year, when it was found at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, a court affidavit states. “Derringer explained that he was aware that his pistol was in his carry-on bag but he thought that it was acceptable to carry a pistol on an airplane,” according to the complaint filed this week in US District Court in Atlanta. Derringer was charged with unlawfully entering the Atlanta airport’s secure area Jan. 9. Air passengers are allowed to bring guns as checked baggage only. The unloaded firearms must be in locked, hard-sided containers that are declared to the airline when checked, according to the TSA.<br/>