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Air France to fly larger plane on the Paris-Nairobi route
Air France-KLM General Manager for East, Southern Africa, Nigeria, and Ghana Joris Holtus during the launch of the "Air France: A Celebration of Timeless Elegance" exhibition at the Alliance Française in Nairobi on May 15, 2025.
French national flag carrier Air France will deploy a bigger plane on the Paris-Nairobi route from May 2026, boosting its capacity by about 12 percent, to meet growing demand on one of its most lucrative routes to the continent.
The carrier said it will replace the Airbus A350 plane it currently uses to service the Nairobi route with a larger Boeing 777-200, increasing available seats per flight by 12 percent.
This is in response to growing demand on the Paris-Nairobi route, which Air France already services 14 times weekly. The demand is expected to rise during the upcoming summer season, which is the peak demand period for air travel.
“Nairobi is among the cities where the airline is deploying additional capacity, alongside major Asian destinations such as Tokyo, Singapore and Bangkok, as carriers adjust networks to reflect changing passenger flows and geopolitical disruptions affecting Middle East routes,” the carrier said in a statement.
The Nairobi–Paris route links Kenya’s commercial capital to Air France’s hub at Paris Charles de Gaulle, providing onward connections to more than 300 destinations through the Air France-KLM and SkyTeam networks.
Other than Air France, only Kenya Airways operates direct flights between Paris and Nairobi, but only six times weekly and with a smaller plane – a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, which carries only about 250 passengers. The move by Air France will likely heat up the competition for travelers on the route.
The Boeing 777-200 that Air France will now be deploying to Nairobi has a capacity of up to 350 passengers.
The shift comes as Iran conflict reroutes several travelers, who previously relied on the region’s aviation hubs, through Africa, increasing traffic on major routes between Europe and Africa, like Paris-Nairobi.
Carriers like Kenya Airways have already reported improved load factor – percentage of seats on a flight taken up by paying customers – on routes to European destinations because of the disruptions in the Middle East.
In addition to Nairobi, Air France also changed the equipment it uses to service its flight to Abuja, Nigeria from an Airbus A330-200 to an Airbus A35-900; to Douala, Cameroon, from an Airbus A330-200 to a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner; to Lome, Togo, from an Airbus A330-200 to an Airbus A350-900; and to Luanda, Angola, from an Airbus A330-200 to a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.
Air France said the schedule changes are intended to “improve flexibility for passengers while strengthening the efficiency of its Paris hub,” providing more stable global connectivity at a time when reliable air links are increasingly viewed as essential economic infrastructure.
