Mr A and I travelled to Kenya for a short safari in the Masai Mara in February 2020.  Our accommodation package at &Beyond Bateleur Camp included domestic flights from Nairobi Wilson airport (WIL) to Kichwa Temba airstrip (KTJ), so it was they who booked us onto Air Kenya.  But you can make direct bookings through Air Kenya’s website.  Air Kenya is the largest carrier in the Kenyan domestic market and its fleet of 9 propellor aircraft run scheduled and charter flights to several small airstrips throughout Kenya.

We had stayed one night in Nairobi after flying in from Switzerland the previous evening.  (Air Kenya tends to only fly in daylight hours.). Our hotel provided our transfer to WIL, from where the majority of Kenyan domestic flights operate. WIL is a very old facility, resembling a WWII era airfield, with a shortish sealed runway sitting atop a small plateau, surrounded by hangars and warehouses with multiple propellor aircraft parked outside each. So each small operator has its own ‘terminal’.  Although Air Kenya’s ‘terminal’ is amongst the largest, it’s still a small ’boutique’ experience.  Even the security guards are happy to engage in friendly chit chat, and I’ve never before seen avocados growing on a tree outside an airport terminal!

A cute 3-desk check-in area is after security. Luggage size, material and weight restrictions apply on most of Air Kenya’s flights, and if your bags don’t comply you can leave them with Air Kenya and collect them on your return. We chose to leave behind one bag containing all our European winter clothes.

Once checked in you can relax in the departure lounge, which although small, is spacious enough for the small number of flying pax.  There are toilets and large windows looking onto the busy ramp.  Up a flight of stairs is a cafe serving good coffees and snacks.

Everything at WIL is calm and relaxed – so much nicer than a ‘regular’ trip through an airport!

We boarded our DHC Twin Otter aircraft, registered 5Y-BGH, at 2pm and, as we were first to board, we grabbed two seats in row 1, at the pointy end.  Seats are not numbered or pre-allocated and pax are asked to fill up the 19 seats from the front to the back.  There’s no door between the cockpit and the cabin, so the Captain just turned round in his seat to give us the flight details and the safety briefing, and then passed out some mint sweets to suck.  He told us we’d be flying at 8,500 feet, but as this part of Kenya is over 5000 ft above sea level, we would in fact be about 3500 ft above the ground.  Bottles of water were also available, and handed out.

Front row seats on the Twin Otter give you great views inside the cockpit.  But you sit level with the front of the propellors, so you might prefer a seat further back, where it’s a little less noisy.

We took off from WIL at 14:15 and landed at North Mara airstrip at 14:55, where most of the pax disembarked and a few more joined.  The starboard engine was kept running during this short stop, and with a lot of game (impala, giraffe, wildebeest and zebra) visible in the grassland around the airstrip, this was unlike any other airport transit!  BTW on these bush flights great care is taken to ensure grazing wildlife isn’t on the runway, either by the plane flying low over the runway before landing, or by the safari lodge meeters and greeters shooing the beasts away.  But sometimes it doesn’t go to plan – at KTJ there’s a plane that hit some wildebeest when it landed. No humans hurt, but the plane was damaged, and two wildebeest died.

At 15:09 we were airborne again and we flew at just 1000 ft above ground, before landing at KTJ 8 minutes later, at 15:17, where we were met by &Beyond people with a cool glass of pink bubbles in hand.

It’s worth mentioning that even on the 1000 ft sector I couldn’t make out individual animals in the grasslands below, only herds. So don’t expect to tick off the big five on these flights, though you will get a good appreciation of the terrain and geography.  They key reason for using these bushflights is the time saved in getting to the Mara. One hour versus eight in a car from Nairobi.

Our return flight from KTJ to WIL was operated by another De-Havilland Twin Otter, this time it was 5Y-BIO.  And once again it was scheduled to make a pit stop at another isolated airstrip in the Mara (I missed its name).

We left KTJ at 14:45 and landed at the next strip 10 minutes later.  There were lots of zebra and various antelopes grazing beside the runway, but fortunately none ventured into the path of our Twin Otter.  At 15:00 we lifted off for the final sector, to WIL, where we landed at 15:50.

All pax had to identify themselves against a pax manifest, then their temperatures were taken.  This was in response to Covid-19, and it also happened when we first landed in Kenya, but I should note that at this time Kenya didn’t have any cases of the virus, and while UK did have infections, it was still not screening arriving pax!

We left the ‘terminal’ building and turned right to the place where baggage is returned by hand (no fancy conveyor belts here). That’s also where we were reunited with the bag we’d left at WIL, after presenting our storage receipt.  Then we jumped into a local taxi (they’re all a creamy yellow colour) to take us to Jomo Kenyatta International airport for our flight back to Europe on Swiss.

Overall I can heartily commend Air Kenya for your access to Kenya’s safari lodges. The airline appeared efficient, our flights ran to schedule, and staff were all warm and friendly.  10/10