Larry Madowo delivers damning verdict about JKIA

11 December 2023

• The CNN journalist was in the country over the weekend and suffered the same blackout the engulfed most of the country.

Renowned Kenyan international journalist Larry Madowo has complained about frequent power outages affecting the main international airport in Kenya, the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport known as JKIA.

Madowo is among the many Kenyans and tourists who were at JKIA on Sunday night when the airport was engulfed in darkness.

Complaining through his social media pages, the CNN reporter said that the power went out at the airport three times while he was waiting for his flight.

"I experienced three power outages at JKIA while I was waiting for my flight. What will we tell the people," Larry Madowo said on Facebook.

He shared videos and photos showing the darkness that had engulfed the international airport.

The former NTV presenter said that in the many countries he has visited in the world, only Kenya has seen electricity being lost in an international airport.

"There have been three power failures at JKIA since I arrived here an hour ago. I go through about 50 international airports a year. This is the only one I've seen lose power, and frequently," he said.

JKIA was among the many areas in Kenya that were affected by widespread power outages on Sunday evening.

The Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) in its statement on Sunday evening apologized to customers affected by the latest problem affecting Terminal 1A and 1E.

They explained that the darkness at the two stations was due to the failure of the generators that are supposed to supply electricity there after the loss of steam.

"We would like to assure the public that the rest of the airport, including the JKIA Tower and Runway, continued to operate fully and were not affected by this incident," KAA said.

The authority also confirmed that their technicians were able to fix the generator problem and electricity returned to the affected stations in a short time.

"In our commitment to quality service and operational reliability, we have initiated a thorough investigation to determine the root cause of the generator failure," they said.