Qatar Airways has suspended flights from South Africa and four other African countries just days after reopening of reservations for outbound passenger flights.
The Doha-based airline continued flights to South Africa after Omicron was identified, but passengers were not allowed to board flights from Qatar to South Africa, and Qatar Airlines brought back its planes in the Middle East without passengers.
Qatar Airlines announced on Friday that it would resume passenger flights from Johannesburg and Cape Town. However, on Sunday his website noted that it would no longer accept passengers from five southern African countries.
The U-turn came as Bloomberg and UK media such as the Daily mail and The telegraph reported that the UK’s controversial red list could be removed this week and replaced with Covid-19 tests for fully vaccinated travelers, just weeks after its implementation. Bloomberg reported that the United Kingdom could announce the removal of the 11 countries from its red list as early as Tuesday, ending the mandatory quarantine of hotels for travelers
PRESS RELEASE 🚨
The Minister of Tourism welcomes the return of flights from the source market
We will continue to call on all countries to follow WHO’s advice, lift all selective travel bans and reopen their borders with South Africa. #WeDoTourism # TourismRecovery pic.twitter.com/IivdwKrRLy
– Department of Tourism (@Tourism_gov_za) December 10, 2021
“Qatar Airways will no longer accept passengers from five Southern African countries in our global network. However, we will continue to accept passengers to travel to these countries under current restrictions, â€the airline said.
Passengers who have booked on Qatar Airways flights departing from Luanda, Angola; Maputo, Mozambique; Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, South Africa; Lusaka, Zambia; and Harare, Zimbabwe, “will not be accepted for travel until further notice,” he said.
Qatar’s last flight to leave Cape Town International Airport was at 12:25 p.m. on Monday, December 14, as shown on the airport’s international departures board.
It is still unclear what caused this sudden change of mind. Qatar Airways did not respond to Daily Maverick‘s on the reason for the decision at the time of publication.
While airlines such as Airlink, Lufthansa, KLM and Air France appear to operate with inbound and outbound South African passenger flights, Qatar Airways’ continued suspension of flights brings the airline into compliance with Turkish Airlines and Emirates who have also suspended flights from South Africa, Zola Mazaleni told the Cape Town International Airport information desk. Daily maverick.
On November 30, Emirates announced that it would operate passenger flights four times a week to Johannesburg, but that it “would not carry outbound passengers from Johannesburg.”
“Until further notice, Emirates has temporarily suspended passenger operations to and from Durban and Cape Town,” the airline said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has strongly criticized travel bans and others ” knees “ reactions from various nations to the Omicron variant, calling for the decision non-scientific and discriminatory. Hours after identifying the Omicron variant, the UK had restricted travel from South Africa and some of its neighboring countries, once again adding South Africa to its travel red list.
The World Health Organization has supported South Africa and called for an end to travel bans and restrictions imposed by various nations. DM
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