Kenya Airways review by Peter

Kenya Airways – Factor in Ransom Payments I was super excited to travel to Zimbabwe and see Africa for the first time and got the perfect excuse when one of my closest friends from college planned her wedding in Harare. My outbound flight on American Airlines was cancelled due to weather, leading to me missing my connecting flight on Kenya Airways. While this was unpleasant, no one can control the weather, and AA helped re-book me on a later Kenya Airways flight into Harare, Zimbabwe, so I made it on time to the wedding. After a few weeks of seeing Victoria Falls and making friends with lions, I got back to check into my flight back to the States with Kenya Airways. The attendant there helpfully let me know that I had been marked as a “no-show” on my outbound flight, and now my return ticket was cancelled as a result. After arguing that I clearly was re-booked on a later outbound flight, given my presence in Zimbabwe, and would very much like to return home, Kenya Airways told me I could get on the flight if I paid a “penalty” of $1200. As I had already paid for a round trip ticket, which typically include a flight home, I indignantly refused to pay for my flight a second time and wound up missing the morning flight. Two more flights back to the States came and went, and I missed all of those flights as Kenya Airways demanded ransom payments to let me out of the sweltering hot airport onto a plane. I racked up hours of international cell phone call payments with American Airlines customer service and my travel agent, who all let me know that Kenya Airways was not picking up the phone, and they were the only ones who could get me on one of their planes. 16 hours later, having missed every single flight that day, I finally gave in and paid the $1200 “penalty,” or really, the ransom payment, in addition to the $1600 round trip ticket I had already paid, and Kenya Airways let me on the flight back home. For the privilege of nearly doubling the cost of my plane ticket, I also had a 17 hour layover in Nairobi, after which Kenya Airways told me my flight to JFK was overbooked. At this point I had resigned myself to the fact I had probably died and was in some new circle of airline hell, but fortunately Kenya Airways did one thing right and found a seat for me onto the flight back to the States, which I had paid for twice. All in all, I wound up spending nearly four days total in airplanes and airports, racking up international phone charges, and nearly doubling the cost of my Kenya Airways ticket. Kenya Airways, the Pride of Africa.