The beginning of 2021 continued where 2020 left off for Kenya's Scenic Air Safaris, though within Q3 it felt some forward movement. “With the start of Q4 we gained some good momentum, so overall 2021 has been a better year than we expected,” says marketing and innovations specialist Simon Penfold. “With an exclusively Cessna based fleet, we operate three executively-configured Grand Caravan 208Bs and two Stationair 206s. By far the most popular are the Grand Caravans, a real Swiss army knife of an aircraft, ideally suited to African bush airstrips.”

The company has been involved with a number of unusual missions of late, including facilitating the rescue of an orphaned baby giraffe. Penfold says that a number of different factors enabled it to emerge from the pandemic. “The most notable factors have been the most incredible support from our international agent base, our board of directors and the Scenic Air team who have hung in there despite the challenges they faced.

“We have plans to launch a new and unique product to east Africa, new branding for our flying safari business and to continue offsetting our carbon emissions. It is our hope that the year 2022 will continue to see a drop in COVID infections and an increase in private air charter travel worldwide.”