COVID-19: Turkish Airlines cancel flights to Nigeria
- Airlines’ losses may exceed IATA’s $113b projection
More international carriers are taking drastic measures to limit the spread of deadly Coronavirus as Turkish Airlines has cancelled all flights to Lagos, Abuja and Port-Harcourt. The carrier operates to the three destinations in Nigeria.
The airline in a statement said the cancellations would start for flights originally scheduled to arrive Lagos on March 17, 23 and 29th, while flights for Abuja scheduled for March 13, 16th, 20th, 25th, 27th and April 1, 2020.
Flights for Port-Harcourt will not operate on March 11, 13th, 18th, 25th and 25th. The airline was silent on when it would re-commence flight operations to the country..
The carrier stated that the action was taken “in view of the corona virus situation all over the world”.
With this latest announcement by Turkish Airlines which brought in first index case of Italian with Corona Virus, it is clear that airlines’ losses could mount beyond the International Air Transport Association (IATA) forecast that airlines’ wouls make a loss of over $113 billion as a result of the deadly virus.
Last week, Emirates asked staff to take unpaid leave for up to a month at a time due to the rapidly spreading coronavirus that has led to flight cancellations around the world.
The airline canceled flights to Iran, Bahrain and to most of China because of the virus, and countries around the world have placed strict restrictions on entry of foreigners.
The airline has more resources than it needs as a result of cutting frequencies or cancelling flights to some destinations, said Chief Operating Officer Adel al-Redha in a statement.
“Considering the availability of additional resources and the fact that many employees want to utilize their leave, we have provided our employees the option to avail leave or apply for voluntary unpaid leave for up to one month at a time,” he said.
Emirates Group, the state-owned holding company that counts the airline among its assets, has asked staff to consider taking paid and unpaid leave as it seeks to manage a “measurable slowdown” in its business, Reuters reported on Sunday, citing an internal company email.
The group had more than 100,000 employees, including more than 21,000 cabin crew and 4,000 pilots, at the end of March 2019, the end of its last financial year.
Major concerts and events in the United Arab Emirates, an air transit center that includes tourism and business hub Dubai, have been canceled or postponed as the coronavirus spreads in the Gulf.
The airline industry’s largest global body IATA on Monday urged Middle Eastern governments to provide support to airlines as they try to manage the impact of the outbreak.
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