Kenya Airways (KQ, Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta) is planning to add its first B767 freighter by the end of the first quarter, cargo director Fitsum Abadi Gebrehawaria told Air Cargo News. The airline plans to eventually transition to B777 freighters by the end of the decade.

"We may transition with B767-300 but with our strategy between now and 2030, we are planning to have three B777Fs," Abadi said.

The second B767 freighter is tentatively scheduled for delivery later in 2026. The airline will deploy its maiden widebody freighters mainly to Asia. Abadi, who used to be managing director for cargo at rival Ethiopian Airlines, identified Guangzhou and Hong Kong International as potential destinations.

The B767s will most likely require a technical stop on these services. The airline would have preferred to go directly for the B777Fs, which have both more payload and more range, but had to defer these plans given the limited availability of aircraft on the market.

Kenya Airways has long been planning to grow its in-house cargo capacity. Then-CEO Allan Kilavuka told ch-aviation in October 2025 that the airline was hoping to more than double its cargo revenues in the next five years. The addition of widebody freighters remains a key part of this strategy, although Kilavuka said that Kenya Airways would also look for more narrowbody freighters.

Currently, the airline's dedicated freighter fleet comprises two B737-300(SF)s and two B737-800(SF)s. In 2024, the last full year for which data is available, the carrier recorded USD119.2 million in cargo revenues, accounting for 10.4% of total revenues. Abadi said that the short-term goal was to increase the contribution of cargo to Kenya Airways' revenues to 20%.

The airline's freighter business pales in comparison to that of regional rival Ethiopian Airlines, which currently operates one B737-800(BCF), three B737-800(SF)s, two (inactive) B767-300ER(BDSF)s, two B767-300Fs, and twelve B777-200Fs.