ATTA CONDEMNS UK GOVERNMENT DECISION TO BLACKLIST AFRICAN COUNTRIES AGAIN
(Posted 26th November 2021)
Nigel Vere Nicoll, the President of ATTA, reacted swiftly last evening when the UK government’s decision came to light to temporarily ban flights again with Southern African countries and especially with South Africa.
Said Nigel in a statement made available to ATCNews:
“The announcement by the UK Health Secretary, Sajid Javid on Thursday evening that with the discovery of a new Covid variant, six southern African countries would be added to the UK red list from midday on Friday GMT, with flights temporarily banned, has come as a complete hammer blow to all of our members. While the safety of all concerned must be considered, it is heart-breaking that this has happened to an industry that is grappling to get back on their feet after the past 20 months. We will work closely with the governments of South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho and Eswatini to understand the full impact of this announcement and how we can support our members and their customers in the coming weeks.”
Both travel and aviation industry leaders have equally taken issue with the flight bans and subsequent travel restrictions as a result of the flight bans while the destination countries appear simply too stunned at this stage to comment, after only coming back on line in the very recent past.
The travel and aviation industry in the affected countries employ tens of thousands of breadwinners, are key economic contributors to the respective national economies and pulling the plug on them once again is likely to trigger massive job losses and failed investments as a result.
