ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES – ETIHAD – EDELWEISS ANNOUNCE DATES FOR RETURN TO SEYCHELLES
(Posted 18th July 2020)
As reported by ATCNews earlier in the week has Ethiopian Airlines set a date for their return to the Seychelles. Flights, initially two a week, will resume on the 01st of August.
Ethiopian will be joined by Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways, which will also relaunch flights back to Mahe on the 01st of August with services operating on Mondays and Fridays.
Swiss leisure airline Edelweiss intends to return to the Seychelles with a once a week flight from September onwards.
Meanwhile has the German government withdrawn permission for flights from Germany to the Seychelles after a recent rise in case numbers, even though all of these cases were imported into the country as a result of a fishing fleet crew exchange. Investigations are ongoing how over 80 sailors could produce a COVID19 free certificate from their country of departure only to be tested positive on arrival. Tourism sources from Victoria insist on the investigation being speedily conducted citing the loss of German tourists for the time being as a major setback for the country’s struggling tourism industry.
Condor according to information received from Germany is now looking as the resumption of their once a week flight by December.
Flights from France, pre pandemic’s second largest tourist source market after Germany, have also not resumed as yet and no indication has been given when services might resume.
Said a regular source from Victoria on condition of anonymity to ATCNews: ‘If Air Seychelles were still to fly to Paris, we would not have this problem. Giving away traffic rights to first a French leisure airline, when they were granted operating permits on the same days Air Seychelles flew from France to Mahe, and when they closed shop to Air France was a massive mistake as we can now see. It is only our national airline we can rely on when the going gets tough, foreign airlines will let us hang. BIG MISTAKE and we know who did it!‘
Kenya Airways, which also served the islands with daily flights prior to the pandemic, using an Embraer E190, will resume international flights out of Kenya on the 01st of August but has given no indication when they will return to the Seychelles and with how many flights per week.
