he high-rolling campaign blitz underscores the stark inequality in a country where in 2020 four in every 10 people lived in poverty, according to a government report.
The disparity is feeding an atmosphere of unease as Kenya -- a nation of about 50 million people -- battles to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, aftershocks of the grinding war in Ukraine and a biting drought.
"You see these people flying all over with seven, 10 choppers... when they come, they tell you that they are for common mwananchi (Swahili for common man)," accountant Benard Ooko told AFP after Odinga landed at a rally in his lakeside hometown of Bondo earlier this month.
It costs about $2,000 an hour to hire a three-seater helicopter -- that compares to Kenya's minimum monthly wage of 15,120 shillings ($128).
"Common mwananchi walks barefoot, the common mwananchi doesn't have food to eat," Ooko remarked.
Deputy President William Ruto, Odinga's main rival for the top job, has come under fire for using choppers to chase votes while giving his supporters wheelbarrows.
The wheelbarrow is the symbol of Ruto's United Democratic Alliance party, and its wealthy 55-year-old leader has sought to portray himself as an advocate for the "hustlers" in a country ruled by dynastic elites he says are out of touch with ordinary people.
Nevertheless, observers say the campaign showmanship can bag votes even from a population ground down by the floundering economy.
Political analyst Joy Mdivo said however that choppers were "a necessity rather than a luxury" as politicians crisscross the vast country, combing for votes in remote villages far from the capital.
"Air travel is much safer than road, and as presidential candidates, their lives are a matter of national interest," Mdivo told AFP, referring to the poor state of Kenya's roads and the high number of fatal accidents.
Scenes of men clinging on treacherously to the landing gear as their favorite politician's helicopter takes off have become commonplace, prompting the KCAA to crack down on what it called "James Bond" antics.
"The typical voter is attracted to the rich politician," political analyst Nerima Wako-Ojiwa told AFP.
But she said the huge wealth gap in multi-ethnic Kenya was not likely to influence voters' choices in August.
At least three in every 10 Kenyans live in extreme poverty, on less than $1.9 a day, the World Bank said in April.
British charity Oxfam said in a report earlier this year that the two richest Kenyans own more wealth than the bottom 30 percent of the population, or some 16.5 million people.
"The extreme inequality in Kenya of increasing wealth and opportunity concentration and opulence, while millions of Kenyans are sinking more and more into undignifying deprivation and hopelessness, is an unfortunate political choice," said Oxfam's country director in Kenya, John Kitui.
"It is obscene, unethical and a form of social violence."
With corruption endemic in Kenya, businessman Samuel Onyango Wala called for investigators to check the candidates' campaign spending sprees.
"Where are they getting that money from? It's from the taxpayers," he said.
"They are looting the economy while the common mwananchi is really suffering down here and we are not happy with that at all."
