__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Thursday, May 16, 2013

► KENYA: British Airways sees strong East African market potential as a result of newly discovered mineral wealth.

British Airways
British Airways (BA) plans to leverage Kenya’s strategic position to help improve its market share in East & Central Africa and South Sudan, with the region's recent discovery of oil and minerals set to boost it's passenger and cargo traffic potential, BA's regional commercial manager George Mawadri, has said.

Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta International Airport
Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta International
According to Mr Mawadri, with multinational companies setting up base in region, such as Coca-Cola, General Electric, IBM, Google and Bharti Airtel, and the discovery of minerals and oil in Ethiopia and Uganda, the possibilities for BA to grow remain strong with plans to take advantage of Kenya’s developed commercial sector and aviation industry.
With the discovery of oil in Kenya and Uganda, gas in Tanzania and Mozambique and the rich oil fields of South Sudan business opportunities in the region are great and this brings with it more movement in and out of this countries,” he said.
Source [The Star]

Mawadri said BA will take advantage of Kenya’s developed commercial sector and aviation industry which serves other regional capitals to grow its passenger and cargo business, where East Africa is currently the airline’s biggest African cargo market with a weekly uplift of 126 tonnes.