Abstract: The airline industry contributes immensely to the Kenyan economy but performed dismally from 2016 to 2022 as compared to other regional airlines. Circumstances related to flight safety resulted to this dismal performance. The study sought to examine safety management systems’ effect on performance of airlines in Kenya. Specifically, safety policies, safety risk management, and safety awareness effect on performance of airlines. Resource Based View, Balanced Score Card and Contingency theories anchored the study while descriptive research design was applied. Target population was 33 airlines and proportionate stratified purposive sampling technique was used with a sample size of 7 airlines. Fifty-seven respondents filled the semi-structured questionnaires for primary data collection while a document review tool assisted to collect secondary data. Pilot study involved 8 respondents from Safari Link Airlines ascertaining the questionnaires appropriateness via content and construct validity while its reliability proven by 0.792 Cronbach’s Alpha test. Descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to analyze data. The results indicated that safety management system significantly affected airline performance with strong contribution from safety policies, safety risk management and safety awareness. The study concluded that safety management system having significantly contributed to positive airline performance necessitated airlines to strengthen frameworks for hazard identification and risk management to reduce prevalence of accidents. This study recommends incorporating other sectors of the aviation for findings to be fully representative of Kenya’s aviation sector and for comparison with other countries. It also recommends investigating the influence of industry regulations and political interference as mediating and moderating variables that may be restrictive to management’s autonomy. Finally, the study recommends airlines and industry regulatory bodi