By Kemo Cham
Earlier this week the Kenyan government raised the hopes of the traveling Sierra Leonean community when an official indicated that plans were underway to have Kenya Airways resume flight to Ebola affected countries. But a response to an inquiry by Politico from the management of the airline itself has casted doubt of this happening soon.
The Kenyan daily, The Star newspaper, Monday quoted Kenya`s Cabinet Secretary [minister] for Health as saying they had looked into the possibility of reversing the decision banning the airline also known as KQ from flying to the Ebola-hit nations because the deadly hemorrhagic viral disease`s transmission had stabilized. The Cabinet Secretary, James Macharia, said his ministry was consulting with stakeholders to decide on a date, but said it could be within the next two weeks.
The airline, on the other hand, sounded not quite optimistic as expected when contacted on the matter.
Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia have recorded the highest number of cases and have accounted for majority of the over 11,000 deaths recorded from the deadly disease that erupted early last year and spread outside Africa.
The aviation sector has been just one of several areas of the economies of these countries that have been hardest hit by the epidemic due largely to unilateral flight bans and travel restrictions imposed on the citizens of the Ebola affected nations.
Out over half a dozen airlines which operated in Sierra Leone prior to the outbreak, only two - Brussels Airlines and Royal Air Maroc - continued flying in the midst of the crisis and despite outcry from other quarters.
Recently, Air Cote d’Ivoire resumed flights to Freetown following an appeal by the ECOWAS leadership and after the spread of the virus had shown sign of ebbing.
KQ, which also operates to neighbouring Liberia, served as a reliable connecting flight for Sierra Leoneans heading for the east of the continent. But the East African giant also has a vast route across the globe, making it a major airline for a country struggling for foreign investments.
At the height of the epidemic back in August, the management of KQ reluctantly halted its flights to the two countries under pressure from the government and a very wary Kenyan public backed by local pressure groups who feared transmission of the virus by air travel. That actually followed the incident involving the Liberian national who fell ill and died from the virus shortly on arrival in the Nigerian city of Lagos on board a plane from Monrovia, Liberia.
As a result of suspension of its flights, reports later indicated KQ had lost a huge chunk of its revenue due to the interruption on the West African route.
But it`s the affected countries that paid the greater price. President Ernest Bai Koroma has been on record severally condemning international isolation of the region. Yet despite the strongest indication of willingness expressed on the part of the Kenyans to reverse the ban, some analysts are wondering what, if anything, the government was doing.
When contact, a KQ official in Nairobi told Politico that Kenya Airways would resume direct flights from Nairobi to Sierra Leone only when the Kenyan Ministry of Health lifted the suspension.
“At the moment the suspension is still in place and therefore KQ is not flying directly from Nairobi to Sierra Leone and Liberia,” the official, Wanjiku Mugo, stated in an emailed reply.
We tried in vain to get a response from Sierra Leone’s ministry of transport and aviation for an insight into what the government was doing in this regard.
© Politico 30/04/15
