Paul Muite has argued plenty of cases in his time as one of Nairobi’s best-known senior counsels. Now he’s on the other side of a demand letter — and the target is Kenya Airways.
Muite, along with his wife Dr. Edith Ndeto Muite, their two daughters, and two grandchildren, is seeking more than Ksh. 3 million from the national carrier after a cancelled flight left the family stranded for hours at Zanzibar’s Abeid Amani Karume International Airport.
A Holiday That Went Sideways
The family had gone to Zanzibar for an 11-day break. Getting home was supposed to be simple: Kenya Airways Flight KQ491, wheels up at roughly 10:10 a.m. on August 31.
They showed up early, around 8:10 a.m., checked in without issue, got their boarding passes, and cleared immigration. By all appearances, everything was on track — this was also during an ongoing dispute involving the Kenya Aviation Workers Union, so the family says they’d been keeping an eye on the airline’s updates just in case.
Then came the wait. Hours passed. It wasn’t until about 3:45 p.m. — nearly five and a half hours after the flight was due to leave — that anyone told them what was going on. And even then, according to the family’s demand letter (dated September 7, from Maina Ngaruiya & Company Advocates), it wasn’t a Kenya Airways staff member who broke the news. It was an airport employee.
No Water, No Answers
Once the cancellation was confirmed, things reportedly got worse rather than better. No accommodation. No food vouchers. Passengers were sent back through immigration to collect their bags and told to wait for an email.
By the family’s account, they went roughly seven and a half hours without so much as drinking water — with a three-year-old among the group enduring the same wait.
The Bill for Getting Home
Eventually, out of options, the Muites paid for a private charter through Coastal Soul Kenya Limited, a Mombasa-based operator. That flight alone cost USD 20,500 — close to Ksh. 2.65 million — plus another Ksh. 52,650 in related costs.
All this on top of the Ksh. 596,450 they’d already paid for the original Kenya Airways tickets.
What the Family Wants
The demand letter, addressed straight to Kenya Airways’ CEO, gave the airline seven days to respond. Among the asks: the airline should own up to what happened, refund half the original ticket price (Ksh. 298,225), cover the full cost of the charter flight and its related expenses, pay for other documented losses, and compensate the family for the distress of the whole ordeal.
There’s also a pointed request for answers — why the flight status still showed “on time” when it wasn’t, why passengers were waved through check-in and immigration before anyone mentioned a cancellation, and why the airline had no backup plan ready when things fell apart.
Muite, for his part, says the delay cost him more than money — he missed work commitments back in Nairobi after arriving a full day behind schedule.
Bad Timing for Kenya Airways
This isn’t an isolated headache for the carrier. Just days earlier, Kenya Airways revealed that a three-day strike tied to the same union dispute had cost it more than USD 7 million — north of Ksh. 900 million — after 63 flights were scrapped and over 160 more ran late, often by six hours or more. A Return-to-Work Agreement eventually settled things, and the airline says operations are back to normal.
Whether that’s enough to satisfy the Muite family remains to be seen. The clock on their seven-day ultimatum is already running, and if it lapses without a resolution, further legal action looks likely.
This post reflects publicly available reporting as of early September 2026 and may be updated as the situation develops.