Passengers Left Stranded at JKIA

The Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) on Saturday swung into action to help passengers stranded at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) following the partial blackout that, for some hours crippled operations at the airport.

In a statement, KAA announced that it had activated generators at the international airport following a series of complaints from Kenyans left stranded at the facility for the second time in 3 months.

As various parts of the country experienced an outage, JKIA was one of the critical infrastructure affected, which raised eyebrows especially since Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen had vowed that the international airport would not experience an outage ever again. 

In its statement, the authority revealed that the generators were activated after 20 minutes in a bid to restore normalcy.

KAA informed the public that there was a scheduled synchronization of another backup power which will be completed in the next 30 days.

“KAA is committed to maintaining uninterrupted operations and regrets any inconvenience that this outage might have caused to passengers and stakeholders,” read part of the statement.

The agency lauded the passengers for their patience as KAA continues to ensure that the infrastructure at the facility is more reliable.

On Saturday, most parts of the country experienced a power outage at around 8 pm resulting in disruption of major activities. 

Shortly after, Kenya Power announced that it was working to restore normalcy.

In August, Transport CS Kipchumba Murkomen sacked some officials at the airport for the blackout that paralysed operations at the facility for almost two hours.

“I am sorry for what happened at JKIA with the blackout. There is no excuse worth reporting and there is no reason why our airport is in darkness,” Murkomen stated.

KAA earlier explained that one of the generators at the airport failed to start leading to delays.