By Monica Kobusiinge
Entebbe: As of today, 2 October 2020 Qatar Airways will resume flights to and from Entebbe International Airport after seven months of closure.
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Qatar Airways made the announcement a few hours ago, bringing additional global connectivity to Uganda which had cut itself off from the rest of the world for more than 6 months in an ultimately failed attempt to keep the pandemic out of the country.
READ ALSO: CAA Issues Passenger Flight Schedules Ahead Of Entebbe Airport Reopening On October 1st
With the addition of three weekly flights to Entebbe, Qatar Airways network in Africa will increase to 47 weekly flights to 17 destinations across the continent, including Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Accra, Addis Ababa, Dar es Salaam, Djibouti, Kigali, Kilimanjaro, Lagos, Maputo, Mogadishu, Nairobi, Tunis, Windhoek and Zanzibar.
According to Qatar Airways vice-president for Africa, Hendrik Du Preez flights will resume on Friday, October “We are delighted to resume flights to Entebbe as soon as the airport reopened, the capital of Uganda is an important destination for us having first started our operations back in 2011, Hendrick said.
READ ALSO: Govt Sets Stringent Guidelines For Reopening Of Entebbe Airport
”The resumption of this route has been highly anticipated by our travel industry partners, the business community and the Ugandan diaspora across the world and we are delighted to be adding it back to our global network, connecting Uganda with key destinations in the UK, US and Europe via Doha.”
“With our three weekly flights from Entebbe International Airport via Kigali, Ugandan passengers can enjoy seamless connections across the globe via the best Airport in the Middle East, Hamad International Airport, we remain committed to the African region, resuming flights almost every week,” he added.
READ ALSO: Uganda Airlines Postpones Johannesburg-Entebbe Repatriation Charter
The airline currently operates over 650 weekly flights to more than 90 destinations including 27 destinations in Asia-Pacific, 31 in Europe, 13 in the Middle East and nine in North America, the airline added that it will remain focused on providing seamless, safe and reliable connectivity to its millions of passengers.
Due to Covid-19’s impact on travel demand, the airline had taken the decision to ground its fleet of Airbus A380s as it is not commercially or environmentally justifiable to operate such a large aircraft in the current market.
READ ALSO: Uganda Airlines Buys New CRJ 900 Bombardier Planes As Entebbe Airport Develops Huge Cracks
The airline’s fleet of 49 Airbus A350 and 30 Boeing 787 are the ideal choices for the most strategically important long-haul routes to Africa, the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific regions.
Qatar Airways’ onboard safety measures for passengers and cabin crew include the provision of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for the cabin crew and a complimentary protective kit and disposable face shields for passengers.
Business Class passengers on aircraft equipped with quite can enjoy the enhanced privacy this award-winning business seat provides, including sliding privacy partitions and the option to use a ‘Do Not Disturb (DND)’ indicator.
Qatar Airways’ home and hub, Hamad International Airport (HIA), has implemented stringent cleaning procedures and applied social distancing measures throughout its terminals.
Passenger touchpoints are sanitized every 10-15 minutes and boarding gates and bus gate counters are cleaned after each flight.
Qatar Airways’ had already in August resumed a three times a week service to Kigali, where the airport was opened on the 01st of that month, while Ugandan authorities chose to remain closed for a further two months, incurring the wrath of many would-be travellers.
