Kenya Airways has sacked 38 members of its staff as part of Operation Pride, a restructuring campaign aimed at returning to airlines to profitability.

The airline's CEO Mbuvi Ngunze who will be stepping down in March this year, said in a statement on Tuesday that the sacking was part of managing redundancies and redeploying staff members.

Nguze noted that the first phase that was implemented in July 2016 affected 80 workers.

"We continued looking for opportunities for productivity and efficiency gains as well as up-skilling within the business," he said.

"There is never a perfect timing for such actions, and we will ensure that the process is handled within the values of our Airline." Nguze said.

The loss-making national airline has been dealing with staff complaints and general loss of confidence in addition to protracted call from the pilots' union to sack the management.

According to Ngunze, Operation Pride is expected to deliver $200 million in savings from cutting down on expenditures, sales and sublease of aircraft, waste reduction in catering, and contract renegotiation.