African Express Airways is a Somali-owned Kenyan airline with its head office at
Jomo Kenyatta International Airport
Jomo Kenyatta International Airport is an international airport serving Nairobi, the capital and largest city of Kenya. The other three important international airports in Kenya include Kisumu International Airport, Moi International Airport a ...
in
Embakasi
Embakasi is a neighbourhood in the city of Nairobi. It is approximately , southeast of the central business district. Embakasi is considered part of Nairobi's Eastlands area, lying to the south-east of Nairobi County. The Embakasi proper cover ...
,
Nairobi
Nairobi is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Kenya. The city lies in the south-central part of Kenya, at an elevation of . The name is derived from the Maasai language, Maasai phrase , which translates to 'place of cool waters', a ...
,
Kenya
Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...
.
Services
African Express Airways is a
short-haul airline, which caters to business and leisure travellers and operates daily departures. It also has an associate company located near its head offices, Jet Aircraft Maintenance Ltd., which specializes in jet aircraft maintenance ranging from 'A' to 'B', 'C' and 'D' checks for most medium-range aircraft of Western manufacture. The company has a new in situ hangar equipped with all facilities, including maintenance hangar rental services for third parties who may have their own engineers and approvals.
Destinations
Current destinations
As of July 2024, African Express Airways operates services to the following domestic and international scheduled destinations:
[africanexpress.net - Booking](_blank)
retrieved 19 July 2024
;Kenya
*
Nairobi
Nairobi is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Kenya. The city lies in the south-central part of Kenya, at an elevation of . The name is derived from the Maasai language, Maasai phrase , which translates to 'place of cool waters', a ...
-
Jomo Kenyatta International Airport
Jomo Kenyatta International Airport is an international airport serving Nairobi, the capital and largest city of Kenya. The other three important international airports in Kenya include Kisumu International Airport, Moi International Airport a ...
base
;Somalia
*
Mogadishu
Mogadishu, locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital and List of cities in Somalia by population, most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port connecting traders across the Indian Ocean for millennia and has ...
-
Aden Adde International Airport
*
Hargeisa
Hargeisa ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Somaliland, a ''List of states with limited recognition, de facto'' sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, still considered internationally to be part of Somalia. It is also th ...
-
Hargeisa International Airport
;Yemen
*
Seiyun -
Seiyun Hadhramaut Airport
Former destinations
The airline previously also served the following airports:
;Comoros
*
Moroni –
Prince Said Ibrahim International Airport
;Djibouti
*
Djibouti
Djibouti, officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa, bordered by Somalia to the south, Ethiopia to the southwest, Eritrea in the north, and the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to the east. The country has an area ...
-
Djibouti International Airport
;Egypt
*
Cairo
Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...
–
Cairo International Airport
;Kenya
*
Mombasa
Mombasa ( ; ) is a coastal city in southeastern Kenya along the Indian Ocean. It was the first capital of British East Africa, before Nairobi was elevated to capital status in 1907. It now serves as the capital of Mombasa County. The town is ...
–
Moi International Airport
Moi International Airport is an international airport in Mombasa, the second-largest city in Kenya. In 2020, the airport was heralded as the "Best Airport in Africa" (with under 2 million passengers annually) by Airports Council International ...
*
Eldoret
Eldoret is a city in the Rift Valley region of Kenya. It serves as the capital of Uasin Gishu County. Located in western Kenya and lying south of the Cherangani Hills, the local elevation varies from about at the Eldoret International Air ...
–
Eldoret International Airport
Eldoret Airport is an international airport in Kenya.
Location
Eldoret Airport, , is located in the city of Eldoret, in Uasin Gishu County, in midwestern Kenya, close to the international border with Uganda. Its location is approximately , by ...
*
Kisumu
Kisumu ( ) is the third-largest city in Kenya located in the Lake Victoria area in the former Nyanza Province. It is the second-largest city after Kampala in the Lake Victoria Basin. The city has a population of slightly over 600,000. The ...
–
Kisumu International Airport
Kisumu International Airport is an international airport in Kisumu, the third-largest city in Kenya . It is the third-busiest airport in Kenya, the busiest airport in Kenya west of Nairobi
Nairobi is the Capital city, capital and largest ...
;Somalia
*
Berbera
Berbera (; , ) is the capital of the Sahil, Somaliland, Sahil region of Somaliland and is the main sea port of the country, located approximately 160 km from the national capital, Hargeisa. Berbera is a coastal city and was the former capital of t ...
–
Berbera Airport
*
Bosaso -
Bosaso Airport
*
Garowe -
Garowe Airport
*
Kismayo
Kismayo (, , ; ) is a port city in the southern Lower Juba (Jubbada Hoose) province of Somalia. It is the commercial capital of the autonomous Jubaland region.
The city is situated southwest of the capital Mogadishu, near the mouth of the Jub ...
-
Kismayo Airport
;South Sudan
*
Juba
Juba is the capital and largest city of South Sudan. The city is situated on the White Nile and also serves as the capital of the Central Equatoria, Central Equatoria State. It is the most recently declared national capital and had a populatio ...
–
Juba International Airport
;United Arab Emirates
*
Dubai
Dubai (Help:IPA/English, /duːˈbaɪ/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''doo-BYE''; Modern Standard Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic: ; Emirati Arabic, Emirati Arabic: , Romanization of Arabic, romanized: Help:IPA/English, /diˈbej/) is the Lis ...
–
Dubai International Airport
Dubai International Airport () is the primary international airport serving Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the world's busiest airport by international passenger traffic as of 2024. It is also the busiest airport in the Middle East as ...
*
Sharjah
Sharjah (; ', Gulf Arabic: ''aš-Šārja'') is the List of cities in the United Arab Emirates, third-most populous city in the United Arab Emirates, after Dubai and Abu Dhabi. It is the capital of the Emirate of Sharjah and forms part of the D ...
–
Sharjah International Airport
Sharjah International Airport () is an international airport located east-southeast of Sharjah (city), Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. It is spread over an area of . It is the 3rd busiest airport in UAE, the country as well as List of the busie ...
;Yemen
*
Aden
Aden () is a port city located in Yemen in the southern part of the Arabian peninsula, on the north coast of the Gulf of Aden, positioned near the eastern approach to the Red Sea. It is situated approximately 170 km (110 mi) east of ...
–
Aden International Airport
*
Mukalla
Mukalla, officially the Mukalla City District, is a seaport and the capital city district of Yemen's largest governorate, Hadhramaut Governorate, Hadhramaut. The city is in the South Arabia, southern part of the Arabian Peninsula on the Gulf of A ...
–
Riyan Mukalla Airport
Fleet
Current fleet
The African Express Airways fleet consists of the following aircraft (as of July 2024):
Former fleet
*
Embraer EMB 120ER Brasilia
*
Boeing 727-200
Accidents and incidents
* 4 May 2020: An East African Express Airways
Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia
The Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia is a twin-turboprop 30-passenger regional airliner, commuter airliner designed and manufactured by the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer.
The EMB 120 began development during 1974. While initially conceived as ...
,
registration number ''5Y-AXO'', on an
air charter
Air charter is the business of renting an entire aircraft (i.e., chartering) as opposed to individual aircraft seats (i.e., purchasing a ticket through a traditional airline).
Regulation
Charter – also called air taxi or ad hoc – flight ...
flight delivering pandemic relief supplies,
crashed on approach to
Berdale,
Somalia
Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, th ...
, killing all 2 crew and 4 non-revenue passengers on board. On 10 May, a leaked
African Union peacekeeping force report alleged that ground troops of the
Ethiopian National Defense Force
The Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) () is the combined military force of Ethiopia. ENDF is consisted of 10 command forces which is controlled by the Chief of General Staff.
Commanders of the Military
Supreme Commander – Taye At ...
who were operating outside the peacekeeping force's authority mistakenly concluded that the aircraft was engaged in a
suicide attack
A suicide attack (also known by a wide variety of other names, see below) is a deliberate attack in which the perpetrators knowingly sacrifice their own lives as part of the attack. These attacks are a form of murder–suicide that is ofte ...
and shot it down; this allegation ignited controversy over Ethiopian and Kenyan military incursions into Somalia to fight
Al-Shabaab militants there. The three countries have initiated a joint investigation of the accident.
* 31 March 2024: A
Boeing 727-200 operated by Safe Air Company scheduled to fly from
Juba International Airport to
Malakal Airport
Malakal Airport is an airport serving Malakal, from DAFIF (effective October 2006) a city in Malakal County in the Upper Nile (state), Upper Nile State of South Sudan. The airport is located just north of the city's central business district, ad ...
, South Sudan, undershot the runway after experiencing technical issues. The plane collided into a
McDonnell Douglas MD-82 belonging to African Express Airways, that had crashed around two months earlier in the same airport.
See also
*
Airlines of Africa
References
External links
*
{{Airlines of Kenya
Airlines of Kenya
Airlines established in 1999
Kenyan companies established in 1999