Dennis Awori resigned yesterday as chairman of the Kenya Airways with former Safaricom boss Michael Joseph taking over the position.

“Kenya Airways is pleased to announce that at its meeting held on 26th October 2016, Mr. Michael Joseph was elected Chairman of the Board of Kenya Airways Limited with effect from 26th October 2016 to replace Amb. Dennis Awori who resigned with effect from 26th October 2016 to pursue other interests,”KQ chief executive officer Mbuvi Ngunze announced.

Awori’s resignation comes in the wake of building pressure from the public and the pilots association to have him and the CEO Mbuvi Ngunze resign. Last week the pilots had threatened to down their tools if there was no change in the national airline’s management

Michael Joseph said that key priority will be in restructuring KQ’s financing.

“Our first priority is to restructure the financing and once we have done that we can start thinking about a strategic investor but it is too early to talk about that at the moment,” said MJ.

KQ half year results 2016/2017

Kenya Airways also announced, during an investor briefing yesterday of its half year performance ended September, 2016, a Sh4.7bn loss in half year ended Sept 30, 2016, improved 60% from the KSh12bn net loss posted in 2015, making an operating profit of KES 949 million, a 143.6 % swing from an operating loss of KES 2.2 billion.

The national carrier also announced an increase in the number of Passenger by 4.2% to a total of 2.2 million in the first half of financial year 2016/2017 and traffic across Africa grew by 14%.