Kenya Airways and Delta Codeshare

EDIT: 11 April 2019: Kenya Airways has activated its codeshare with Delta Airlines that will enable connectivity to 11 US cities (Chicago, Houston, Denver, Orlando, Miami, Raleigh, Phoenix Philadelphia, Charlotte, Columbus, and Kansas City) and 4 Canadian cities (Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Edmonton). It also announced a switch from five to seven weekly flights to New York from June to serve the 2019 summer season.

EDIT 15 August 2018  Delta Air Lines entered into a codeshare partnership with Kenya Airways. Effective August 15, Delta’s code will be placed on Kenya Airways’ flights from Amsterdam, Paris, London, and Accra to Nairobi, enhancing connectivity and providing customers with a one-stop seamless travel experience from the United States. In addition, Delta will place its code on Kenya Airways’ services to more than 10 key cities across Africa, including Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Lilongwe, Malawi; Maputo, Mozambique; Johannesburg, South Africa and Djibouti City, Djibouti.

May 10 2018 Delta Air Lines and Kenya Airways have applied to the US Department of Transportation with an expedited request for the two airlines to be expeditiously granted reciprocal codeshare rights for each others’ flights.

The application (PDF) dated 7th May, applies to Delta and Delta Connection flights in North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean to carry the Kenya Airways (KQ) code, while the Kenya Airways will immediately place Delta’s code (DL) on flights between Nairobi to/from Johannesburg (South Africa), Lilongwe, (Malawi), Djibouti (Rep. of Djibouti) and Maputo, (Mozambique).

Delta routes will be part of the codeshare.

Delta which reaches 325 destinations, currently has services to Dakar (Senegal), Lagos, Accra, and Johannesburg, while Kenya Airways is scheduled to start flights to New York in October 2018. There is no mention of Air France/KLM, who have been Kenya Airways long-term joint-venture partner for two decades, in the new US codeshare application.

The new codeshare arrangement which covers “persons, property, and mail,” is an expansion of a previously approved reciprocal codeshare arrangement between Northwest Airlines and Kenya Airways for flights originating in Kenya and North America. Northwest merged with Delta in 2009. The new codeshare will also extend to all Delta Connection regional affiliate airlines (namely Compass Airlines, Endeavor Air, ExpressJet Airlines, GoJet Airlines, Republic Airline and SkyWest Airlines).

Aside from Kenya, Ethiopian Airlines, which flies to several American destinations of Washington (DC), Newark, Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto (Canada), Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Rio de Janeiro & São Paulo (Brazil) is also expanding its American network via routes in West Africa. The airline is reported to have secured rights to fly passengers to Houston via Accra, while it also confirmed that it had entered a codeshare with Air Côte d’Ivoire for flights to Newark via Abidjan.