French charity on the frontline of the Ebola outbreak has criticised UK’s decision to cancel the first direct flights to Sierra Leone after the British government revoked Gambia Bird’s recently granted permit to resume.
Médecins sans Frontières said if the government was going to stop commercial airlines flying to the region it would have to put in place state alternatives.
“It’s extremely difficult to get much-needed staff into the region and at a time that we need more people on the ground than ever, this is very unhelpful,” a spokeswoman told The Guardian.
Freight company Redcoat said that among the cargo booked for Friday 10 October, 2014 was 1,000 personal protective equipment kits including overalls, masks and goggles for doctors and nurses battling the Ebola virus disease that had killed over 800 lives since May.
A spokesman for Gambia Bird’s official agent in the UK, McPhillips Travel, said there were about 60 passengers on the first flight which was scheduled to leave Gatwick on Friday. The plane also had about 4 tonnes of humanitarian aid.
“We think it is an overreaction,” Ben Mortimer said. “The situation was bad on 26 September. It is worse now, but not much.
“We already had protocols in place as part of the permit in which they had the names and addresses of all passengers in the event they needed to trace people. This is much better than trying to screen people who are coming into the country from Europe or Morocco on an indirect route,” he said.
Gambia Bird, along with British Airways and Air France, stopped services to and from Sierra Leone in August this year but the German-owned airline announced it was resuming flights because of the damage being caused by the lack of access.
Only one European airline, Brussels Airlines, has maintained its operations, allowing travel for doctors, nurses and other workers fighting to end the crisis in Sierra Leone.
In a statement issued to its passengers and commercial partners, McPhillips Travel said the decision “punishes Sierra Leone and West Africa in general”.
The decision closed what charities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) said was a vital humanitarian corridor to Sierra Leone, which is struggling to cope with the Ebola outbreak.
Meanwhile, the airline said it would appeal against the decision, especially as its licence was only granted on 26 September but the UK Department of Transport cited the deteriorating public health situation for the revocation when it notified the German-owned airline on Friday evening.
A spokesman for the department said the inconvenience to passengers was unfortunate but its priority was tackling the spread of Ebola and protecting the British public from the disease.
It said it would “continue to explore options which could assist travel by NGO workers to affected areas”.
(C) Politico 14/10/14
