MAHE TO TEL AVIV LIKELY BE FIRST ROUTE AFTER SCHEDULED PASSENGER FLIGHTS RESUME
(Posted 10th June 2020)
With most of the main tourism source markets of the Seychelles still closed, such as Germany, France and Italy, is the country’s national airline looking at destinations to relaunch which do permit passenger traffic and which fall into a #COVID19 category of countries permitted by local health authorities to let tourists from there come to the islands.
It is understood that as of 16th of July Air Seychelles intends to relaunch passenger services to and from Tel Aviv, though passengers must meet the stringent guidelines to be admitted into the country.
That will include an ‘active’, i.e. not older than 48 hours COVID19 Free certification from a recognised health institution in the country of origin, in this case Israel, testing on arrival on Mahe and then observing a stay put order in their booked resort, while excursions and visits to other islands are still banned.
Given very recent admissions from the World Health Organization, that asymptomatic individuals infected with the virus can apparently still cause a transmission, will the strict enforcement of Seychelles’ rules be the key to keep any further importation of the virus and a return of the pandemic to the islands.
With South Africa in continued lockdown and no end in sight for the ban of international passenger flights are the options for relaunching their entire network slim at this time, also given that India is experiencing a surge in cases while Mauritius is presently dealing with some more recent cases which emerged after all previously infected individuals on that island had recovered from the disease.
Air Seychelles had previously announced their intent to operate repatriation flights which was reported here via https://atcnews.org/2020/06/05/airseychelles-set-for-repatriation-flights-of-seychelles-nationals-from-abroad/
ATCNews will inform readers once additional destinations are opened up again by Air Seychelles.
