Kenya Airways Has Not Made Orders for Boeing 737-800 MAX Jets, Says Michael Joseph

Kenya Airways Chairman Michael Joseph has clarified that the airline has not made any order for Boeing 737-800 Max 8 jets.

Joseph says that information contained in an article published by the Daily Nation claiming that the national carrier would go ahead to acquire the faulted jets is false.

He says that the publication misquoted him on the alleged acquisition of 10 Boeing 737-800 Max planes.

“We have not ordered any planes. How can we cancel something we have not ordered? I never said what was reported. I said we would review it if and when the time came,” tweets Joseph.

In the article also published by the Business Daily, the publication reported that Kenya Airways had decided not to cancel an order for the planes despite safety concerns.

The newspaper said KQ would be purchasing 10 of the planes for Sh120 billion ($1.2 billion).

“We hope that between now and the time when we are ready to acquire the new fleet, Boeing will have solved the current problem,” the newspaper quoted Joseph as saying.

Several countries including the US, UK, and China have grounded the aircraft following two fatal crashes involving the brand in less than six months.

Three weeks ago, all the 157 people aboard the Nairobi-bound Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 Max flight perished after it crashed six minutes after taking off from Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa.

The crash came five months after another accident involving the same type of plane belonging to Lion Air claimed the lives of all the 189 people on board.

36 of those killed in the Ethiopian Airlines crash were Kenyans.