Delta Air Lines puts off flights to Kenya, Liberia following US government’s security concerns

Delta Air Lines was forced to postpone its much-awaited inaugural flight from Atlanta in the United States to Nairobi in Kenya on June 2, 2009, after the airline failed to obtain the United States government’s approval to fly to the east African country.

The US government says that will not let Delta to fly to Kenya till security concerns in and around Nairobi, the capital of Kenya and the country’s largest city, are resolved.

In a statement, Delta Air Lines, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, the United States, and also the largest airline operator in the world, said that, for the same reason the US government cited, it had to put off its inaugural flight from Atlanta to Monrovia in Liberia, which had been scheduled for June 8, 2009.

Delta’s inaugural flight was scheduled to land at Nairobi on the afternoon of June 3, 2009, for a ceremonial welcome to be attended by Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga, other ministers, the United States’ envoy to Kenya as well as officials of Delta.

The four-times-a week flight from Atlanta to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi via Dakar in Senegal was to use a Boeing 767-300ER aircraft with 217 seats.

Delta said the inaugural flight would have been almost full for the 18-hour journey.

In a statement, Delta Air Lines said a majority of the passengers were re-booked on a KLM flight to Nairobi.

While some others passengers were re-booked on the flights of Air France and Kenya Airways, a few others would have to stay overnight in Johannesburg, South Africa, before reaching Kenya on June 4, 2009.

Some passengers decided to cancel their trip to Nairobi, Delta Air Lines said.

Delta’s planned Atlanta-Nairobi flight had has raised prospects of more trade between the United States and Kenya, the biggest economy in east Africa.

The government of Kenya, on its part, said it had complied with all additional security measures requested by Delta Air Lines Delta and also declared that the security at Nairobi Airport’s was “excellent.”

The United Nations Security Council had, in May 2009, said that it would re-assess the need for a 10,000-strong peacekeeping force in Liberia – a country that is coming out of a devastating civil war.

Delta Air Lines said that it learned only on June 1, 2009, of the decision by the United States Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and that the TSA’s decision “only suggested that the agency needed more time to approve its requests.” 

But the US Transportation Security Administration stressed in a press release that it was denying air service by Delta Air Lines to Nairobi and Monrovia till security standards were met or till security threat assessments changed. However, the TSA did not indicate as to when its “concerns on security” might be resolved.

The Transportation Security Administration – which comes under the US Department of Homeland Security – also said that even as it gave Delta Air Lines “verbal notification” on June 1, 2009, it has had “active dialogue with the carrier throughout the process.”

Delta Air Lines had announced the proposed service to Nairobi and Monrovia in November 2008.

According to the United States Department of Transportation (DOT), Delta Air Lines had obtained the DOT’s authority to fly to Kenya and Liberia since April 2007. 

Pan Am was the last United States-based carrier to fly to Nairobi, having stopped its flights in the 1980s.

Kenya is an aviation hub for the region. Many airlines in Europe, Arabia and Asia use Nairobi to offer their passengers connection flights to other African countries.

Delta Air Lines, which at present is the only US-based airline to fly its own planes to Africa, was planning to start flights to other destinations in Africa later in 2009.