Kenya Airways has introduced more flights to London starting October 29 to meet rising demand on the popular route.

The national carrier said it would now have a morning flight as well as an evening one on a route it has been operating for years since it was established.

The airline said it would deploy the B787 Boeing Dreamliner on the route bringing the total flights per week to 14 up from 10 flights.

"The additional flights will cater to the increased market demand for this route and growing passenger demand," it said in a statement.

Among the top three largest airlines in Africa, Kenya Airways has been bankrupt since 2018 as a result of a fleet expansion that saddled it with unmanageable debt of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The airline’s pretax loss for the first half of this year more than doubled to 21.7 billion shillings ($147 million), partly due to the shilling weakening against the dollar. 

The airline has debt of around $1 billion and the impact of a depreciating shilling has hit its bottom line as it struggles to make debt repayments. 

Kenya's government has for years been bailing out the airline but the International Monetary Fund has urged it to find options to improve the airline’s performance and stop its reliance on taxpayers for bailouts.

(Editing by Seban Scaria seban.scaria@lseg.com)