Kenya Airways Replaces 20-Year-Old Booking System with Sabre, Adds Branchspace Storefront
Trade partners across the continent will soon see a different Kenya Airways on the other side of a booking screen. The Nairobi-based carrier has chosen Sabre to replace the passenger service system that has handled its reservations, ticketing, inventory and airport check-in for more than two decades. At the same time, London-based technology firm Branchspace will build the digital shop window that customers and sales channels actually use. Both agreements were announced on 22 September 2026.
For the African travel trade, the important detail is not the software brand. It is the shift in how fares and extras will be sold. A passenger service system is the central database that knows which flights exist, how many seats remain in each fare class, who has booked, what they paid and who has checked in. Changing it is slow and expensive work, and most airlines do it only once in a generation. Kenya Airways has decided not to wait for that migration to finish before improving the customer-facing side.
That is where Branchspace comes in. Its Triplake platform is a modular e-commerce system that covers booking, ancillary sales, check-in, loyalty, payments and notifications. At Kenya Airways it becomes the main digital touchpoint from day one, while the deeper system change continues underneath. The work forms part of the airline’s transformation programme, named Project Kifaru. Branchspace already works with carriers such as British Airways, Finnair, Turkish Airlines, TAP Air Portugal and Air France-KLM, so the approach is tested in mature markets.
Sabre supplies the engine. The new platform is built on Sabre Mosaic and will act as the operational and commercial backbone of the airline. Kenya Airways will also take Mosaic Offer Optimisation, which uses continuous learning and dynamic pricing to match offers more closely to demand. In practice, that means the price and the bundle a customer sees can change according to route, timing and traveller type, rather than staying fixed in a static fare table.
Julius Thairu, Chief Commercial and Customer Officer at Kenya Airways, described the deal as “an important step in Kenya Airways’ retailing transformation” and said the new foundation is built for the way customers book today. Niklas Andréen, Chief Commercial Officer for Airline Technology at Sabre, said the decision reflects growing confidence in modular technology that lets carriers gain value now while building towards an offer-and-order future.
The move also aligns Kenya Airways more closely with IATA’s New Distribution Capability (NDC), which brings shopping, booking, servicing and fulfilment together in a single customer record. Agencies and tour operators that sell the airline should expect richer content over time: seat, bag and service options priced as packages, more channels offering the same fares, and faster changes to what is on sale. Groups, corporate desks and consolidators may need to review how they connect to the carrier, and to check that their own booking tools can display and service these offers correctly.
There is a wider point here for the region. Kenya Airways is one of the larger network carriers in sub-Saharan Africa, feeding traffic between Nairobi and destinations across East, West and Southern Africa as well as Europe, the Middle East and Asia. When a hub carrier of that size changes the way it distributes its product, partner airlines, ground handlers, hotels and destination companies usually feel the effect within a few seasons.
Sales teams may therefore want to start a practical conversation now, not in 2028. Which of your systems can accept dynamic offers? Where does your margin come from if fares move daily? Airlines that sell like retailers reward partners who can package and upsell, and the agencies that prepare early tend to keep the better commercial terms.
Originally Published at travelnews.africa
