Railaspeak is often a head scratcher. The ODM leader routinely makes sweeping statements, as though he expects never to be challenged or fact-checked.

When he speaks off the cuff, in his typical halting, wise-elder style, he tries to force-connect dots that are unconnectable, and he’s cheered for it. 

That was the case again when he spoke at a Cabinet retreat in Karen, Nairobi, on June 20, 2025. A two-and-a-half-minute video clip shared on a social media forum shows him unabashedly expressing regret about the cancellation of the Adani Group-JKIA deal (for which he earns enthusiastic applause from some in the audience).  

He then mentions Kenya Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, and Emirates, appearing to compare the operations of the three carriers, and drops a whopper: “Look at Emirates. People in Emirates there do not look at that airline for making profits. It’s basically a vehicle bringing investors, tourists, shoppers to the Emirates” (more clapping).

He continued: “You can make losses so long as you’re bringing people to our country” (more applause). 

Raila’s assessment was obviously grossly simplistic and misleading. It was hard to fathom what the people applauding were pleased about.

Surely, some listeners in that sophisticated audience that included the auditor general must have been aware that Emirates does indeed worry about generating profits. 

Emirates’ operating philosophy centres on offering premium service with a lean workforce, the latter translating to low expenses. Its so-called ‘hub-and-spoke strategy’ uses Dubai International Airport as its main hub, with the airline marketing itself as a global connector linking travellers to Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

Contrary to what Raila believes, this has nothing to do with tourism but about making Dubai a global aviation crossroads and reaping heavily from it. 

Emirates also appears to focus on long-haul travel, specialising in connecting distant destinations efficiently. As it says on its website, it embraces competition and an open-skies policy, with customers at the centre. It’s profit-focused and competes fiercely in international markets, targeting wealthy travellers.

It has built a sophisticated global network that generates billions of dollars precisely because it focuses on profits and offering excellent service. 

In 2024-25, according to publicly available financial documents, Emirates made a record profit before tax of $6.2 billion, up 18 per cent from the previous period, with record revenues of $39.6 billion, a six per cent increase from last year.

Emirates’ revenues have risen every year since 2021, and it ranks among the world’s most profitable airlines. It’s not a subsidised “tourism vehicle”, as Raila puts it, but a commercially successful global carrier.  

Now, no one will argue with Raila’s point that Kenya Airways can do better. He was speaking against a backdrop of some rare good news from KQ, which recorded a pretax profit of $42.82 million (Ksh5.53 billion) in 2024, after losing Ksh22.86 billion the year before.

The 2024 performance ended more than a decade of losses, including a massive loss of $633 million (Ksh68.2 billion) in 2022. 

But by Raila’s strange business philosophy, the historical losses shouldn’t have been a problem as long as the carrier kept bringing tourists to our country.

KQ and Emirates operate in vastly different leagues and shouldn’t even be spoken of in the same sentence. How can KQ expand its network on the continent if it has trouble keeping itself aloft in its current form? No matter – Raila still received applause for his quixotic, bombastic logic that glossed over facts and reality.  

The writer is a Sub-Editor with People Daily