Scramble to recover after Nairobi airport fire

Limited international flights have resumed this morning using the airport’s domestic terminal following the fire at Nairobi airport yesterday.

Flight KQ101 from London and KQ887 from Bangkok arrived at the main airport in Kenya’s capital this morning as scheduled.

Kenya Airways said there is a limited schedule for domestic flights between Mombasa and Nairobi and between Nairobi and Kisumu and Eldoret. Local flights will operate from the Cargo terminal.

The delayed KQ760 to Johannesburg and Kenya Airways’ international flights from Nairobi to Mwanza, Dar Es Salaam, Entebbe, Bombay, Dubai, Paris and London Heathrow are scheduled to go ahead today using the domestic terminal but all other flights remain suspended until further notice.

Although the airport reopened yesterday for cargo and domestic services following the fire, international flights into the city had been diverted to other airports in Eldoret, the coastal city of Mombasa, Kisumu in the west, as well as Dar es Salaam, and Entebbe in Uganda.

Foreign airlines which use the terminal include British Airways, Emirates, Qatar Airways, KLM, Turkish Airways, South African Airways and Ethiopian Airways.

British Airways has cancelled its flights BA64 and BA65 between Nairobi and Heathrow today and urged customers not to go to the airport.

It said passengers due to travel to or from Nairobi between now and Sunday August 11th can either delay their trip or change to an alternative destination.

South African Airways (SAA) has also cancelled today’s flights between Johannesburg and Nairobi.

The airline has put a recovery plan in place to minimize the impact of the inconvenience to its customers.

Passengers wishing to cancel or reschedule SAA flights can re-book subject to space and all date and flight change fees will be waived. This will apply to SAA tickets only and not on any other airline tickets.

It said the offer must be taken up by August 12 and all travel must commence on/before August 21, 2013.

The Nairobi airport is a regional hub serving more than 16,000 passengers daily and its closure has caused widespread disruption.

The fire took about four hours to bring under control, by which time the arrivals hall had been gutted.

The cause of the fire is not yet known. Security officials say they are waiting to inspect the damage before drawing any conclusions.

Kenya’s anti-terrorism chief, Boniface Mwaniki, said he did not believe the fire – which happened on the 15th anniversary of the bombings by al-Qaeda of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – was connected to terrorism.

"We don’t want to speculate, but at this stage we do not think there is any such link," he told the Reuters news agency.

President Uhuru Kenyatta issued a statement to reassure the thousands of passengers whose journeys were impacted by the fire at Nairobi Airport.

"Contingency measures have been put in place to stabilize the situation and to return the airport to normal operations," he said.

"We are concerned that the incident interrupted travellers schedules and appreciate that they are being routed to their destinations as soon as is possible."

Tour operators are putting contingency plans in place as well.

It is estimated that over 50,000 Brits travel to Kenya and Tanzania during July, August and September to see the Great Migration of animals through the Mara and Serengeti.

The fire will have a major impact on the tour operators and safari providers whose customers travel to and via Nairobi airport.

Andrew Dunn, chairman of Scott Dunn, said its staff was working hard to ensure its guests who have booked holidays into Kenya and the surrounding region are being cared for and given alternative travel options where possible.

"We are also ensuring that our teams on the ground are assisting guests who are due to fly back to the UK," he said.

Mikey Carr-Hartley, owner of The Safari Collection which includes the Giraffe Manor hotel in Nairobi, said: "We are waiting for more information from the airlines and the tour operators that we work with to find out what the alternative options are.

"We would hope that the airport teams can get the airport up and running again as soon as possible as none of us wish to have guests travelling hundreds of miles by road to alternative airports such as Dar es Salaam.

"We are completely full at this time of year so are doing everything we can to ensure our guests have a smooth journey."

Meanwhile, Kuoni said its operations team is working closely with ground agents in Kenya to ensure that any customers who are currently in resort and were impacted by the closure of the airport, or new arrivals, are contacted and their itineraries amended accordingly.

"Customers will be contacted on a rolling basis," it said.

By Bev Fearis, TravelMole UK