A bitter courtroom battle over the VIP meet-and-assist concession at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport has laid bare what petitioners describe as a textbook case of corruption, open defiance of judicial authority, and a direct threat to national security at Kenya’s most important gateway.
The service in question is not ordinary porterage.
It involves receiving heads of state, foreign ministers, diplomats, military delegations, and other high-profile travellers the moment their aircraft touches Kenyan soil, escorting them through restricted immigration and customs channels, and delivering them to waiting state motorcades.
Globally, such “protocol” or “meet-and-assist” operations are classified as critical security functions because the handlers are granted unfettered access to sterile zones that ordinary passengers and even most airport staff may never enter.
Yet according to a petition now before the High Court’s Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Division at Milimani, the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) has repeatedly handed this sensitive concession to two companies that the courts and the Public Procurement Administrative Review Board (PPARB) have already declared unfit.
The saga began in 2021 when Willis Protocol Concierge Services Ltd, a firm owned by petitioner Fredrick Mulaa, first pressed KAA to formalise and professionalise the hitherto chaotic VIP handling arrangements.
KAA responded by floating tender No. KAA/OT/JKIA/MBD/0042/2020-2021.
Umbato Safaris Limited emerged as the winner, but rival bidders challenged the process.
In a detailed ruling, Justice Francis Tuiyott found multiple irregularities and nullified the entire tender, permanently barring Umbato Safaris from operating the service.
Undeterred, KAA returned in early 2024 with a fresh tender, No. KAA/RT/MBD/0207/2023–2024. This time Tradewinds Aviation Services Limited applied.
It was disqualified at the technical evaluation stage for failing to meet mandatory security and experience requirements. Tradewinds appealed to the PPARB, lost, took the matter to the High Court, and lost again. Both forums upheld the disqualification in unambiguous terms.
By mid-2025, therefore, two separate judicial processes had produced binding orders: Umbato Safaris and Tradewinds Aviation were legally prohibited from ever providing VIP protocol services at JKIA.
Yet on 16 October 2025, Nairobi law firm S & S Advocates wrote a chilling demand letter to KAA’s Acting Managing Director, Dr. Mohammed Gedi.
The letter, copied to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, stated that KAA had quietly executed fresh contracts with the very same two companies and that their staff were already operating inside the airport’s most sensitive areas.
The advocates accused KAA of “deliberate, blatant and cynical contempt of court” and gave the authority seven days to revoke the contracts or face certiorari and contempt proceedings.The security implications are stark.
Less than three weeks earlier, between 5 and 7 October 2025, detectives from the Transnational Organised Crime Unit, working with airport police and customs officers, had dismantled a sophisticated narcotics syndicate that was using JKIA as its main transit hub.
Four suspects were arrested inside the terminal and later arraigned at the JKIA Law Courts. Aviation security consultants privately acknowledge that the fastest way to move contraband, cash, or even hostile operatives through an airport is to embed them inside an authorised VIP escort team — precisely the loophole that irregular concessionaires create.
The petition now before Justice Olga Sewe seeks far-reaching remedies: a declaration that the current contracts are illegal and unconstitutional; a permanent injunction restraining Umbato Safaris and Tradewinds from any further involvement; personal accountability orders against Dr. Gedi and other senior KAA officers; and mandatory supervised re-tendering under full judicial oversight.
With JKIA handling more than seven million passengers a year and serving as the undisputed aviation nerve centre of East and Central Africa, insiders warn that continued tolerance of such practices could trigger an FAA Category 2 downgrade, punitive measures from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, or the quiet rerouting of long-haul flights by nervous international carriers.
As the file awaits its first mention in open court, one question hangs heavily over Nairobi’s aviation community: how many more breaches — of law, of security protocols, and of simple common sense — will it take before Kenya’s flagship airport is brought back under genuine control?
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