Britain-based Virgin Atlantic has set its sights on 25 percent of the market share when it launches its London-Nairobi route later this year, its chairman Sir Richard Branson said Monday.
Branson said the daily service, to be operated by a 240-seater Airbus A340-300 aircraft, would be launched June 2 and will target a quarter of the market share currently dominated by British Airways and Kenyan Airways.
"The total market is about 500,000 passengers (per year) and we expect to get around 100,000 in our first year," he told a press conference here to promote the route.
"If it is successful and we put on two planes, we hope to capture bigger than 25 percent," he added. Nairobi will become Virgin Atlantic's fourth African destination. The company also plans to launch a London-Mauritius flight in November. It already flies to Cape Town, Lagos and Johannesburg.
Kenyan Tourism Board (KTB) chief Ochieng Ong'ong'a said the move would boost Kenya's tourism sector, the keystone of the east African nation's flagging economy. "The launch of Virgin Atlantic flights is an endorsement of Kenya as a safe tourism destination and investment," Ong'ong'a told AFP.
Since an attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa in 2002, the United States has maintained a travel warning advising its nationals to exercise caution in Kenya for fears of terrorism.
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