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Uche Usim, Abuja
As the Federal Government moves to shut all airports to international flights in response to the wildly-spreading coronavirus pandemic, passengers on Saturday rushed to reschedule their outbound flights to beat the March 23 deadline; a development that turned the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja to a madhouse of some sort.
Our corrrespondent gathered that majority of the travelers were billed to travel to the 15 destinations listed in the Federal Government’s travel restriction list.
The rush to travel was also fueled by the government’s disclosure that three persons had been confirmed to have contracted coronavirus in Abuja.
The chaotic situation was no respecter of persons as the high and middle class slugged it out on long queues that snaked around the terminal.
It was gathered that a bulk of the foreign airlines are set to suspend flights to the country for about a month.
Lufthansa, a German carrier in its message to its clients said its operations have been suspended from March 23, 2020 until April 19, 2020.
It further disclosed that the last flights from Port-Harcourt will operate on March 20 and from Lagos and Abuja on Sunday March 22 to resume on April 20.
As regards walk-in services, the airline said operations have been closed till further notice since the dreaded pandemic seems to be spreading.
Air France-KLM said its travel policy in and out of Nigeria was changing by the day due to many factors like travel bans/restrictions, border closure, stressing that it is becoming more difficult to know what is going to happen next.
“Therefore, at this stage, we would like to share the following flight schedule with you. KLM Lagos to Amsterdam flies till Wednesday, March 25, 2020 but will not fly on March 23 and 24th, 2020. Air France Lagos to Paris flies till Sunday March 22, 2020. Air France Abuja to Paris is currently not flying any more due to Ndjamena closure”.
Already, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has released country specific analysis of the impact of COVID-19 to Africa’s aviation industry.
Out of the five major economies on the continent comprising South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Rwanda, the disruptions from COVID-19 could result in 853,000 loss in passenger volumes and $170 million loss in base revenues in Nigeria.
IATA, the clearing house for over 280 global airlines stated that the disruptions to air travel could also put at risk over 22,200 jobs in the country. If the situation spreads further, approximately 2.2 million passengers and $434 million of revenues can be lost.
