Kenya Transport Minister Chirau Mwakwere said the U.S. Transportation Safety Administration canceled Delta Air Lines' inaugural flight between Atlanta and Nairobi last week because of terrorist threats, not security at the Nairobi airport.
"What we have been told is it was a major threat not on the Kenyan airspace but the entire route to JKIA [the airport in Nairobi]," Mwakwere said at a Friday news conference in Nairobi, according to the East African Standard newspaper.
TSA spokeswoman Andrea McCauley said Monday the agency "is not commenting on any specific threat" related to canceling what would be the first U.S. airline service to Nairobi in about 20 years.
She could not say when the agency will grant approval for the Nairobi service, but that the TSA is working with Delta and African airport officials to start Delta service between New York and Monrovia, Liberia.
Delta was scheduled to start those flights this Monday but the TSA pulled the plug because the Monrovia airport did not meet international security standards. "We've got teams of experts on the ground working on that right now," said McCauley.
— Jeffry Scott
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