Air France adds Nairobi seats

Air France is adding seats on its Nairobi route for summer 2026, starting May 15 with a larger jet on the Paris service. (corporate.airfrance.com; capitalfm.co.ke) The airline will switch the Nairobi-Paris flight to a Boeing 777-200 from May 15, replacing the Airbus A350 now used on the route. Capital Business reported that change lifts seat capacity by 12 percent. (capitalfm.co.ke) Air France said in its March 26 summer schedule that it is adding flights to Nairobi as part of a wider long-haul reshuffle. The carrier plans to serve nearly 170 destinations in 73 countries this summer, with long-haul capacity up 2 percent from summer 2025. (corporate.airfrance.com) The Nairobi increase comes after Air France already upgraded the route once for summer 2025, when it moved the service from a Boeing 787-9 to an Airbus A350-900. That earlier aircraft change also added seats on the Kenya route. (corporate.airfrance.com) Nairobi has been in Air France’s network since March 25, 2018, when the airline launched three weekly flights from Paris-Charles de Gaulle. At launch, Air France said the service worked alongside seven weekly Kenya Airways flights, giving travelers 10 weekly nonstop Paris-Nairobi frequencies across the two partners. (corporate.airfrance.com) The route matters beyond France because Paris-Charles de Gaulle is one of Air France’s main long-haul hubs. Capital Business said the Nairobi flight feeds onward connections to more than 300 destinations across the SkyTeam network. (capitalfm.co.ke) Kenya is adding those seats as its tourism numbers keep rising. The Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife said international arrivals climbed 9 percent in 2025 to 2.7 million from 2.47 million in 2024, while total tourism earnings reached about 500 billion Kenyan shillings. (capitalfm.co.ke; the-star.co.ke) Europe supplied 25 percent of Kenya’s international arrivals in 2025, according to the ministry, behind Africa at 47 percent and ahead of the Americas at 14 percent. The same report said leisure trips made up 46 percent of arrivals, with business travel at 19 percent. (capitalfm.co.ke; the-star.co.ke) Air France has also tied the Nairobi increase to broader network shifts caused by the Middle East security crisis. In its summer schedule, the airline said it was keeping some Middle East routes suspended while adding flights to in-demand destinations including Nairobi and several Asian cities. (corporate.airfrance.com) For travelers, the immediate change is simple: more seats between Nairobi and Paris from mid-May, and more options onward through Europe and North America once they land at Charles de Gaulle. (capitalfm.co.ke; corporate.airfrance.com)