Aviation executive Sean Mendis says his first Kenya Airways flight in three years exposed a wider problem at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport — one that goes beyond Business Class queues and raises questions about terminal capacity, airport coordination and Nairobi’s ability to compete as a major African hub.

NAIROBI, Kenya — For Sean Mendis, the test of an airline does not begin when an aircraft leaves the runway.

It begins at the terminal door.

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The veteran African aviation executive, consultant and former Africa World Airlines chief operating officer arrived at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport this week holding a Kenya Airways Business Class ticket for his journey back to Malawi.

Mendis had been in Nairobi for the Aviation AFRICA Summit & Exhibition. It was also his first Kenya Airways flight in three years.

He frequently travels across the continent and says Ethiopian Airlines and Airlink have generally been his preferred choices over Kenya Airways.

This time, he decided to give KQ another chance.

What followed, according to an account Mendis published after the journey, was an airport experience that has opened a much larger discussion about the relationship between Kenya Airways’ premium product and the infrastructure through which the airline must deliver it.

Mendis’ conclusion was characteristically direct.

“JKIA is quite simply not fit for purpose at peak hours.”

The significance of that statement extends beyond one dissatisfied Business Class passenger.

Only months earlier, the Kenyan government reached a remarkably similar conclusion about the pressures facing its principal international airport — albeit in considerably more diplomatic language.

In March, the Ministry of Roads and Transport acknowledged that JKIA was experiencing “significant congestion during peak operating hours”, specifically identifying pressure on the runway system, passenger terminals and apron areas.

That convergence between passenger experience and official capacity assessments raises an important question for Kenya’s aviation ambitions:

Has traffic at JKIA outgrown the way the airport currently operates?

Premium ticket, ordinary queue

Kenya Airways markets Business Class as more than a larger seat at the front of the aircraft.

Its published Business Class proposition includes VIP treatment at SkyPriority check-in, priority baggage handling and access to its Pride and Simba lounges.

For Mendis, however, much of that premium proposition became diluted before he reached the lounge.

He described a SkyPriority terminal entrance shared with airport staff and flight crews, requiring passengers to yield as employees moved through the same access point.

The alternative, he suggested, might have been quicker.

Priority check-in and immigration were also congested, while the security queue presented an even greater problem.

According to Mendis, the queue extended almost back to the escalator.

If a functioning SkyPriority security channel existed, he said, it was difficult to distinguish it within the volume of passengers.

His complaint therefore isn’t simply that JKIA was busy.

It is that a passenger who had specifically purchased a premium product could not consistently obtain the priority that formed part of that product.

That distinction matters.

Where does KQ end and JKIA begin?

There is an institutional complication behind the criticism.

Kenya Airways does not control every stage of a passenger’s movement through JKIA.

Immigration is a government border-control function. Airport infrastructure and facilities fall principally within the Kenya Airports Authority environment. Security screening involves the wider aviation-security apparatus. Airline operations, passenger handling and the delivery of KQ’s commercial product bring Kenya Airways into the equation.

A premium passenger therefore moves through an aviation chain involving several organisations.

And that creates a familiar airport-management problem: the passenger experiences one journey even though multiple institutions are responsible for delivering it.

Mendis acknowledges this.

His criticism does not place the entire burden on Kenya Airways.

But he argues that an airline selling a premium product should nevertheless be proactive in protecting that product.

In practical terms, that could be as straightforward as having staff actively managing priority queues and ensuring that passengers entitled to SkyPriority receive it.

The broader challenge is coordination.

That issue was acknowledged again this week as government agencies discussed improvements at JKIA.

Immigration Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang called for closer cooperation among the institutions operating at the airport.

“We need a relationship between all the agencies. We need a coordinated approach; one that is intelligence-led,” Kipsang said. The Standard

Interior Principal Secretary Raymond Omollo similarly emphasised implementation rather than simply agreeing on reforms.

“When we agree on certain things, it is critical that we follow them through,” Omollo said.

For passengers, institutional boundaries ultimately matter considerably less than whether the airport works.

JKIA is already operating beyond designed capacity

The numbers provide important context to Mendis’ experience.

The Ministry of Roads and Transport says JKIA handled approximately 8.93 million passengers in 2025, against a designed capacity of roughly 7.5 million passengers annually.

The airport continues to operate with a single runway, while its terminal complex has developed incrementally over time, creating what the ministry describes as space and circulation constraints.

A separate government presentation of the JKIA Integrated Master Plan put current capacity at approximately 8 million passengers and said 8.8 million passengers used the airport in 2025.

Whichever capacity baseline is applied, the conclusion is essentially the same: JKIA is operating at or beyond the passenger volumes its existing facilities were designed to accommodate.

Government forecasts suggest the problem will intensify.

Passenger traffic is projected to reach approximately 22.31 million annually by 2045, while air cargo could rise from 407,214 tonnes in 2025 to about 860,400 tonnes over the same period.

The government’s own assessment identifies limited runway capacity, insufficient aircraft stands and apron space, terminal congestion and worsening landside road congestion among JKIA’s capacity constraints.

Mendis’ experience therefore occurred against an airport system already officially recognised as being under pressure.

Mendis proposes a less obvious solution

Building more infrastructure is the conventional response to airport congestion.

Mendis has another proposal.

He believes KAA should examine whether JKIA needs Level 3 slot coordination during peak periods.

The suggestion moves the discussion away from simply asking how many aircraft JKIA can land and towards a more complicated question:

How many aircraft — and their passengers — can the entire airport system efficiently process at the same time?

Airport capacity is not solely runway capacity.

An aircraft can land successfully while the passengers it delivers overwhelm immigration. Departing aircraft can be accommodated on the airfield while hundreds of their passengers simultaneously overwhelm check-in and security.

Concentrate enough flights into a short departure or arrival bank and an airport can become congested even when its runway remains operational.

That is the core of Mendis’ argument.

Slot coordination could potentially distribute demand more closely around the infrastructure actually available.

For Kenya Airways, however, there is an important trade-off.

Hub airlines intentionally concentrate arrivals and departures into waves so passengers can connect efficiently between flights. Spreading flights too widely can increase connecting times and weaken the attractiveness of a hub.

The challenge would therefore be finding a balance between connectivity and congestion.

And that makes Mendis’ proposal more consequential than a call for shorter Business Class queues.

It raises a fundamental question about how Nairobi should manage the growth of its hub.

Government is betting on expansion

Kenya has already chosen infrastructure expansion as a major part of its answer.

The JKIA Integrated Master Plan proposes optimisation of existing facilities alongside substantial new construction.

Near-term measures include reconfiguring and selectively expanding existing passenger terminals and modernising check-in, security screening, immigration and baggage handling.

Longer term, the government plans a new passenger terminal initially capable of handling another 10 million passengers annually, additional taxiways and aprons, upgraded air traffic control and firefighting infrastructure, improved cargo and maintenance facilities and better landside access.

The master plan also envisages a new runway, with government saying airfield capacity could eventually rise dramatically from the current approximately 14 aircraft movements per hour.

But new terminals take years to build.

Passengers are travelling today.

That is why operational measures — queue management, passenger processing, staffing, technology, scheduling and inter-agency coordination — remain important while Kenya waits for additional physical capacity.

A difficult moment for Kenya’s hub ambitions

Mendis’ criticism also arrives at a sensitive time.

JKIA suffered serious disruption at the end of August after aviation workers launched industrial action that produced delays and cancellations across Kenya and disrupted regional services.

The dispute ended on September 1 following a return-to-work agreement involving the union, aviation authorities and other stakeholders.

The episode was not isolated. A similar strike had disrupted JKIA in February.

Mendis had already warned about the reputational consequences.

Speaking after the recent industrial action, he argued that travellers outside Kenya who have a choice can simply route themselves through Addis Ababa, Johannesburg or Dar es Salaam instead of Nairobi. The EastAfrican

That observation is especially significant because Mendis is precisely the type of passenger Nairobi wants to attract: a frequent African business traveller moving between multiple countries and capable of choosing competing hubs.

His latest journey demonstrates the competitive problem in miniature.

He says he normally gravitates towards Ethiopian Airlines or Airlink.

He gave KQ another opportunity.

Then JKIA became part of the airline’s product whether Kenya Airways wanted it to be or not.

KQ itself is undergoing change

The experience also comes during a significant management and financial transition at Kenya Airways.

Acting Group Managing Director and CEO George Kamal stepped down this month after only eight months in the position, with Habil Waswani named to take over as acting CEO from September 15.

Kamal had succeeded Allan Kilavuka in December 2025 after previously serving as KQ’s chief operating officer. Aviation Week

Meanwhile, Kenya Airways is pursuing new investment while confronting financial and operational pressure.

The airline reported a KSh15.92 billion pre-tax loss for the first half of 2026, compared with KSh12.17 billion during the equivalent period a year earlier. Fuel costs increased sharply, while maintenance delays and spare-parts shortages constrained capacity despite passenger demand.

Chairman Kiprono Kittony has said the airline has received interest from potential local and international investors as it seeks both capital and an aviation-sector strategic partner.

That makes seemingly small customer-service failures more important than they might initially appear.

An airline attempting a financial turnaround cannot separate balance-sheet repair from product delivery indefinitely.

For a network carrier competing for premium African business traffic, reliability and consistency are commercial assets.

Not everything went wrong

Mendis’ assessment was not entirely negative.

Once through the difficult ground-processing experience, he found the Pride Lounge satisfactory.

Boarding went smoothly.

The aircraft pushed back on time.

And he described the onboard breakfast positively.

Those details matter because they narrow the criticism.

This was not an argument that every element of Kenya Airways had failed.

Rather, the weakness occurred at the interface between airline product and airport operation.

That is arguably harder to solve.

Aircraft interiors can be refurbished. Menus can be changed. Lounge furniture can be replaced.

Fixing an airport journey involving an airline, airport authority, immigration, security agencies, employees, infrastructure and thousands of passengers requires coordinated operational discipline.

The airport is part of the airline product

For decades, airlines have differentiated premium travel through better seats, lounges, meals and loyalty benefits.

But for a hub carrier, the airport itself becomes part of the product.

A Business Class passenger connecting through Addis Ababa experiences Ethiopian Airlines partly through Addis Ababa Bole International Airport. A passenger connecting through Doha experiences Qatar Airways partly through Hamad International Airport.

Kenya Airways cannot completely control JKIA.

But international passengers inevitably judge the two together.

That is the uncomfortable point underneath Mendis’ criticism.

Kenya wants Nairobi to remain one of Africa’s major aviation gateways. Kenya Airways wants to compete for passengers connecting across Africa and onwards to Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North America.

Yet the government itself acknowledges that JKIA is experiencing peak-hour congestion and that existing infrastructure is already under capacity pressure.

Infrastructure investment is coming.

Operational reforms are underway.

But competition between African hubs will not wait for Nairobi’s new terminal to be completed.

For Mendis, there will soon be another test.

If Nairobi wants to be one of Africa’s leading aviation hubs, can the passenger experience grow as quickly as the traffic?