Travel News

People from Belgium and Philippines are also barred in ‘temporary measure taken in response to the pandemic’

China has barred non-Chinese travellers from the UK, Belgium and the Philippines, imposing new border restrictions in response to the worsening Covid-19 pandemic.

The Chinese embassy in the UK said on Wednesday that China’s borders were now closed to those arriving from the UK, including those with valid visas and residence permits. The measure, a reversal of recently loosened restrictions, comes as England began a month-long lockdown in an effort to stop a resurgent outbreak. The country has the highest death toll in Europe of almost 48,000 deaths.

“This is a temporary measure taken by China in response to the current pandemic,” the Chinese embassy in the UK said.

The embassy in Belgium also released a statement announcing restrictions for nationals traveling from Belgium, which has the highest per capita number of cases in Europe. On Thursday, the embassy in the Philippines, which has among the largest number of cases in south-east Asia, followed suit.

The notices said the new restrictions would not affect those with diplomatic, official or courtesy visas or crew members of international flights, trains or other vessels.

Beijing, which has for months largely contained the outbreak and seen the Chinese economy begin to recover, also imposed new rules on those who are allowed in. As of Friday 6 November, all passengers from the US, Germany, the Czech Republic and France must have tested negative for the Covid-19 virus as well as for antibodies within 48 hours of travelling. Passengers from Denmark are subject to the rule from 7 November. Starting on 8 November, those travelling from Australia, Singapore and Japan will be subject to the same rule.

Officials have said that the antibody test is to guard against false negatives in nucleic acid tests. A negative test for the antibody immunoglobulin M, or IgM, the body’s first response to the virus, would indicate that a person has never been exposed or that they have been infected and recovered.

Chinese residents have watched warily as the pandemic continues to spread in Europe and the US. As the UK prepared for its new lockdown, news of the number of private jet bookings circulated Chinese social media with the hashtag “Rich Brits take private jets to escape second lockdown” attracting more than 60m views.

“The whole continent of Europe is in a mess. What’s the difference?” one user commented in response. Another said: “No place is clean. Escaping is not possible.” Another, commenting on the looming lockdown, said: “To put it bluntly, what they are doing is not shedding a tear until they see the coffin.”

• This article was amended on 5 November 2020. An earlier version said that the presence of antibodies shows that a person has either never been exposed to the virus or has been exposed but recovered; this should have referred to the absence of antibodies, or a negative test.

BY  Eniola Akinkuotu, Abuja

The Nigeria Immigration Service has held on to the passport of #EndSARS promoter, Modupe Odele, for the fifth straight day and has refused to disclose reasons for seizing the passport.

Odele, who provided legal assistance to protesters who were unjustly arrested by the authorities, was stopped at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, on Sunday on her way to the Maldives through Dubai.

On Thursday, she tweeted, “Today is the 5th day that my passport is still being held after it was seized at the Lagos international airport. If there’s no no-fly list, that’s okay but why has my passport not been released yet?

“Holding on to my passport without giving me any reason for it is a breach of my constitutional right. I’ve not been informed of any investigation against me, I’m not running. I am here. Investigate. Ask me questions but do not continue to hold on to my passport for no reason.

“November 1, I was stopped and my passport was taken some minutes before boarding this flight. No reason was given, other than ‘you are under investigation’ today is November 5, I still do not have my passport back neither have I been told what the investigation is about.”

The Spokesman for the NIS, Mr. Sunday James, said he had no information on the matter when The PUNCH reached out to him on Thursday.

“I still have not been briefed on the matter and I have no information on it”, James said

The government seems to have clamped down on notable persons who took part in the #EndSARS protest which rocked the nation.

Bank accounts of persons who handled some of the funds raised by the protesters, have been frozen by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

By Wole Oyebade

•Local carrier welcomes ERJ-145 jet

Worried by the second wave of COVID-19 already forcing another lockdown in places like France and the United Kingdom, the Federal Government has disclosed stiffer sanctions, including a six months ban for evaders of the mandatory Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests.

Meanwhile, a local carrier, Air Peace airlines has received another ERJ-145 from C-check. The aircraft, with registration number 5N-BVD, is one of the several stuck overseas due to the COVID-19 disruption.

The Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 raised the alarm over potential second wave in Nigeria, giving travellers’ growing apathy for COVID-19 tests.

The PTF Chairman and Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, expressed sadness at the failure of some Nigerians who arrived from abroad to present themselves for the in-country PCR test, which they signed up to and paid for before arrival.

Mustapha disclosed that available statistics showed that only one in every three passengers had shown up for the in-country test. He warned that, henceforth, the government would have to suspend the passports of travellers that refuse to show up for their PCR tests on arrival into Nigeria after the specified seven days of isolation.

“As you may recall, the PTF announced the guidelines on the reopening of the airspace and the obligations of arriving passengers. The PTF similarly announced sanctions as a consequence of any infraction.

“Having observed serious non-compliance to the level of 65 per cent, the need has arisen to activate the sanctions, which include the suspension of the passports of such defaulting individuals for a period of six months minimum,” he said.

National Coordinator of PTF, Sani Aliyu, who disclosed that states and the Federal Capital Territory had been given resources to tackle the disease, expressed gratitude to all the governors for opening up sample collection centres across the country.

“Every state has received at least N1 billion, the state governments have received the largest single bulk of the PTF intervention. As of today, a total of N50 billion went to states. So, we have enough resources at the state level to be able to push for increased testing and improved surveillance.

“We will continue to work with state governments and urge them to use these resources for the purpose that the Federal Government has given. We have to invest in making sure that the pandemic comes down. There is no doubt we have not flattened the curve yet.

“For those of us that follow the numbers very closely, despite the fact that we are not testing enough, if you follow the number on a week to week basis, you would have noticed a change in the trajectory in the last one week based on the numbers released,” he said.

BY  Chinedu Eze

The Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika has identified poor business plan, high cost of maintenance, choice of operational equipment, high interest on loans and poor corporate governance as some factors responsible for the failure of Nigerian airlines.

Nigerian airlines have average of 10 years lifespan and many of them have gone under in the past 20 years. Some of them include Triax, Okada, ADC Airlines, Chanchangi, Oriental Airlines, Al Barka, Kabo, Sosoliso, Bellview and Afrijet, among others. The minister said if the cost of operation is low, cost of tickets would be lower and more people would travel by air.

The minister said most Nigerian airlines have poor business plan and this include their administrative system, choice of aircraft, choice of routes, choice of manpower and financial management.

On the choice of aircraft, he said because the average distance between two cities in Nigeria is about one hour, Nigerian airlines should acquire small body aircraft that are new and less costly to maintain. These types of airlines consume less fuel and also break-even at 50 per cent load factor.

He said some poor critical decisions made by the management of the airlines led to their demise because airlines operate on a very low profit margin, but they generate high revenue. Owing to this, some owners misapply the funds and then fail to pay for aircraft maintenance, pay for fuel, pay for overheads and charges and then fail to pay the workers.

The minister also said airlines borrow short-term loans at high interest rate of about 25 per cent, adding that because they operate at very low profit margin they find it difficult to cope and pay back these loans. Due to this, the federal government has advanced plans to arrange a system whereby airlines can access credit facility at long-term, single digit interest rate.

On corporate governance, the minister said many of Nigerian carriers run a one man management system where the owner of the company call the shorts without following procedures and processes and without engaging professionals experienced in the industry to make critical decisions on the operation of the airlines.

On aircraft maintenance, the minister said Nigerian carriers pay hugely to maintain their aircraft overseas because there is no major maintenance facility in Nigeria and the ones located in Morocco, Ethiopia and Egypt are too busy that they rarely have space for Nigerian carriers; so Nigerian airlines ferry their aircraft overseas in the US, or Europe where they wait for slot and still pay for accommodation and parking fees while waiting for their turn to take in their aircraft for maintenance.

According to the minister, it is because of the critical need of having a maintenance facility in Nigeria that the federal government decided to establish a maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility, saying if the cost of operation is low for the airlines, the cost of air tickets would also be affordable to average Nigerians to travel by air.

“The lower the charges the better for the aviation business because it will bring down the cost of tickets. But airports must be run and run for profits. For example, Overland Airways has been operating for a long time because they operate aircraft that are cheaper to maintain.

“Since I became Minister I have approved every request made by airlines to import aircraft but if you look at their business plan you see they make bad decisions that lead to their failure. For example, Aero Contractors has been operating for almost 60 years but at a point they changed their business plan and started having challenges. The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) could be held responsible to some extent because they approve these business plans.

“So the funding of airlines is a problem because of the high interest rate on loans. Twenty five per cent interest rate is very high. Source of funding is very important and that is why we have reached an advanced stage for funding for the aviation industry,” the minister said. Senator Sirika also said many Nigerian airlines acquire old aircraft and these equipment are costly to maintain and because many of the airlines do not have good business plan they lose money.

“Old planes are cheap but they are costly to maintain. This is part of the plan I am talking about. “Because of bad planning I know an airline that lost $20 million before it started operations, but I must say that while turboprops and other smaller plans are more economical to operate, I must admit that many Nigerians prefer to travel with jet engine aircraft but smaller planes are becoming more efficient,” the Minister said. But the Managing Director of Overland Airways, Captain Edward Boyo, had said that over 100 domestic airlines have died in the last 20 years due to unfavorable business environment and charges.

Boyo asked for most of the charges including corporate interest tax, educational tax, Federal Inland Revenue Service Tax, local government charges, PSC, TSC/CSC which he said were close to 35 in all, to be abolished as his airline has survived this far because of his business model, adding that if the unfavorable operational environment continues, he might not be sure that his airline would survive.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has revealed that passenger demand in September remained highly depressed.

Total demand (measured in revenue passenger kilometers or RPKs) was 72.8 per cent below September 2019 levels (only slightly improved over the 75.2% year-to-year decline recorded in August). Capacity was also down 63 per cent compared to a year ago and load factor fell 21.8 percentage points to 60.1 per cent.

International passenger demand in September plunged 88.8 per cent compared to September 2019, basically unchanged from the 88.5 per cent decline recorded in August. Capacity plummeted 78.9 per cent and load factor withered 38.2 percentage points to 43.5 per cent. Domestic demand in September was down 43.3 per cent compared to the previous year, improved from a 50.7 per cent decline in August. Compared to 2019, capacity fell 33.3 per cent and the load factor dropped 12.4 percentage points to 69.9 per cent.

“We have hit a wall in the industry’s recovery. A resurgence in COVID-19 outbreaks–particularly in Europe and the US–combined with governments’ reliance on the blunt instrument of quarantine in the absence of globally aligned testing regimes, has halted momentum toward re-opening borders to travel.

“Although domestic markets are doing better, this is primarily owing to improvements in China and Russia. And domestic traffic represents just a bit more than a third of total traffic, so it is not enough to sustain a general recovery,” said IATA’s Director General and CEO, Alexandre de Juniac.

Nigeria’s government on November 2, 2020, approved a NGN4 billion naira (USD10.3 million) bailout for domestic airlines to mitigate the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This was announced by Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika during a three-day public hearing in Abuja on the repeal and enactment of civil aviation bills aimed at enhancing the operations of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET), and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).

Sirika said the government had also approved an additional NGN1 billion (USD2.5 million) in funding to aviation agencies to “cushion the sorry state of most of them, which has made payment of salaries difficult for many of them". He added all funds would be released soon.

Aviation Senate Committee Chairperson, Smart Adeyemi, said the amount earmarked for airlines was insufficient and urged the federal government to budget for more.

Nevertheless, it would have been welcome news for Nigeria's beleaguered carriers, many of whom have echoed calls from IATA for aviation specific state intervention to survive the current aviation crisis caused by COVID-19. IATA earlier this year warned that Nigeria's aviation industry was facing a liquidity crisis and estimated the pandemic had put at risk 124,000 aviation-related jobs and the sector's USD900 million contribution to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Meanwhile, Sirika also disclosed that domestic airlines have racked up about NGN19.3 billion (USD49.3 million) in non-remitted Ticket Sales Charges (TSC) and Passenger Service Charges (PSC) to the NCAA over the past 10 years.

NCAA Director-General, Musa Nuhu, said: “We are going to start taking action and implement actions to recover most of the monies. We have started action last week on airlines that owe us. The irony is that these are taxes the airlines collected from the passengers. These are not their money. They collected but refused to remit”.

Edward Boyo, Chief Executive Officer of Landover Aviation, an NCAA approved aviation training institution, responded that Nigerian airlines were subject to more than 30 different fees and called on the government to bring down charges as carriers were operating on thin margins.

Meanwhile, the Aviation Ministry announced it had again earmarked funds for the establishment of a new national carrier, to be called Nigeria Air (Lagos), within its NGN78.96 billion (USD204.9 million) 2021 budget for the implementation of an “aviation roadmap”.

Sirika told a recent hearing of the Senate Committee on Aviation: “In 2021, the sum of NGN78.96 billion is being proposed for capital expenditure at the headquarters in the Aviation Ministry and the emphasis will focus on the implementation of the Aviation Roadmap as directed by the President. The roadmap will be implemented through a public-private partnership, top-most of which will be the establishment of a national carrier.” He said all necessary agreements and arrangements with other partners had been worked out, "making 2021 the year the new national carrier would be realised".

Other projects would include the establishment of an MRO facility, agro-allied cargo infrastructure, an aviation leasing company, a search and rescue unit, and the creation of an aerospace university with the support of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

Nigeria last year already earmarked NGN47.43 billion naira (USD132 million) in the 2019 budget for the proposed national airline after a 2018 launch did not materialise.

The Secretary-General of the Aviation Safety Round Table Initiative (ASRTI), John Ojikutu, cautioned that government should hold a minority stake in the new envisaged national airline. “We must not fall again into the traps we found ourselves with (defunct) Nigeria Airways (WT, Lagos), which was run more like a government airline than a national carrier.”

“Without the participation of foreign technical partners and investors, Nigeria investors and the Nigerian public, with the government having some shares but not controlling shares, the dreams of credible national carrier and airport concession may end up being just dreams or another disaster in government-owned enterprises,” he said.

Ojikutu proposed the Nigerian federal government retain 5% and state governments 10% shareholding respectively in the new airline, with 40% held by foreign technical investors, 20% by Nigerian investors, and 25% by an Initial Public Offering (IPO).

More news from Nigeria is that Azman Air (AZM, Kano) has announced plans to commence West Coast and international operations having secured its IOSA certification.

According to the ch-aviation fleets advanced module, Azman Air currently operates a fleet of seven aircraft, including four B737-500s, two B737-200s, and one A340-600. It owns one of each type, the rest being leased from GECAS and Standard Chartered Aviation Finance. It currently flies domestically from Abuja, Kaduna Int'l, Kano, Lagos, and Maiduguri.

OTTAWA — Despite minuscule travel demand, Canadian airlines continue to schedule tens of thousands of monthly flights, only to cancel the vast majority of them several weeks before departure in a strategy experts call “bait and switch.”

The approach, adopted by carriers following the collapse of the global travel industry due to COVID-19, leaves passengers stuck with vouchers they may never use or flights that take off days later than planned.

Figures from aviation data firm Cirium show that Air Canada cut more than 27,000 flights, or 70 per cent, from its November schedule between Sept. 25 and Oct. 9.

WestJet, which recently began to offer refunds for cancelled flights in contrast to its competitors, slashed its November schedule by about 12,400 flights, or 68 per cent, in one week last month.

Air Canada says flight schedules have always been subject to change, and that it continues to adjust them as it tries to rebuild from a capacity cut of more than 90 per cent.

John Gradek, an aviation expert and lecturer at McGill University, says the strategy is misleading and cynical, and marks a response to customers’ last-minute buying habits amid the shifting travel restrictions of the pandemic.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2020.

The Canadian Press

These flights are so short, you won't even have time to drop your tray table.

BY MARK ELLWOOD

In December, British Airways will add an unlikely route to its daily schedule: a 54-mile short flight between the island nation of Bahrain and Dammam, in Saudi Arabia. To put that stretch into context, it's about half the distance between New York and Philadelphia. Currently, the airline connects those cities via the 90-minute BA 8499, a limo service that’s assigned its own flight number; the airborne alternative should cut that time by two-thirds.

This is far from the only ultra-short-haul journey in the world, though. The record holder for the world's shortest commercial flight is scheduled for just 90 seconds. In good conditions, Loganair’s 1.7-mile jaunt between the Scottish islands of Westray (population: 640) and Papa Westray (population: 72) in the Orkneys, off the north coast of the mainland, can take under a minute. Headwinds can make the flight a whopping two-and-a-half minutes. Retired police officer Graham Maben is one of the route’s regulars; the 70-year-old Orkney native now runs a tour business on the islands, and estimates he has taken the flight around 40 times over the past 15 years. “There are three regular pilots who work to a rota to provide the service, and yes, we know them all. We always have a quick catch-up while the plane is on the ground,” he says.

In an era when airlines are increasingly emphasizing ultra-long-haul routes—see the current record holder, the nearly 19-hour, 9,500-mile flight from Newark to Singapore—all these short journeys seem outliers. At best, whether in Orkney or Bahrain, they seem quirky and counter-intuitive; at worst, these taxi-like trips are environmentally irresponsible. So why is there such a vibrant market for these taxi-like flights? It’s a combination of the low cost of fuel and, frankly, the lack of other options to get from A to B.

Alaska’s so-called milk runs, which travel between isolated communities like Ketchikan and Sitka, are often holdovers from aviation’s Golden Era, when plane ranges were more limited and refueling required them to shuttle, almost skittishly, between nearby airports. Another mid-century convention, the Chicago Convention of 1944, underwrites the system, too, according to environmental sociologist Roger Tyers. A global roster of governments gathered in the Midwest to establish the rules for a nascent, international aviation industry. To avoid petty squabbles over taxation, this pow-wow agreed that airplane fuel would be exempt from most duties. “The goal was to kickstart a fledgling industry,” Tyers says, “But it was that tax regime which helped aviation become what it is today.” In other words, the relative cheapness of aviation fuel encourages airlines to operate routes where a car journey might be an easy alternative. It also allows airlines to schedule 40-minute flights like those between San Diego and Los Angeles, which might not be profitable on their own but help feed passengers into an airline’s network and book long-haul tickets from a hub like LAX.

Of course, many of these ultra-short-haul legs operate precisely because other options are difficult or impossible. Roiling seas around the Orkneys make boat journeys stomach-churning and more vulnerable to cancelation; Alaska’s milk runs operate between settlements that are unconnected by passable roads. The new Bahrain route has likely been put in place for efficiency, per retired pilot John Cox, who writes USA Today’s Ask The Captain. Cox used to fly in and out of Bahrain frequently; the western-friendly nation was a popular destination for expats living in the Gulf, who would spend the weekend on its beaches. “There’s just one causeway between Bahrain and Dammam,” he says, “I’ve seen it take 40 minutes, and I’ve seen the journey take four hours, particularly on Fridays and Sundays. The customs officials on both sides are very thorough.” No wonder business travelers would prefer the reliability of a scheduled short-haul flight.

And although aviation is a high-profile source of carbon dioxide pollution, it only contributes 3.5 percent of global emissions currently, far lower than industries like farming. The environmental impact of these ultra-short-haul routes won’t be high priority for a few decades, according to Greenpeace’s John Sauven. But as other industries innovate, the aviation business will need to catch up. “As every other sector de-carbonizes, what you’re left with is more aviation,” he explains, citing estimates that suggest aviation’s unwillingness to adopt alternative fuel sources will push its share of emissions to more than 21 percent by 2050.

The good news is that newer planes will certainly offset some of these challenges—like Virgin’s Airbus A350, whose engines will generate 30 percent less carbon dioxide than its current Boeing 747-400. But you don't have to wait for the airlines or aircraft tech to catch up to reduce your environmental footprint. Those concerned with their carbon footprint can proactively invest in carbon offsets. Look for two key phrases to verify that your investment will truly counterbalance each mile flown: VCS, or verified carbon standard, and Gold Standard VER. Both guarantee that any offset scheme is inspected and certified.

Most short-haul critics don’t focus their ire on services that offer a lifeline to local communities with little alternative, like the Orkneys, nor on long-haul journeys over water. (In fact, some data suggests that long-haul flights are less polluting as cruising burns through less fuel than take-off or landing, lowering emissions per mile). The major target, instead, is short-haul, landlocked trips, which could easily be swapped-out for an alternative method. Roger Tyers says that research shows most travelers are willing to take other options, like a train, for any journey four hours and under—London to Paris by Eurostar, for example. Here in America, where the train network is less extensive than in Europe, he suggests adjusting our approach to short-haul trips. Quality, not quantity, says Tyers: if you’re living out of state, visit your mom for two week-long stints per year instead of six weekends. Mom won’t love you any less.

BY ANTHONY AWUNOR, Lagos

Africa’s first Airline and second international carrier to fly into Nigeria, EgyptAir recently took delivery of its first B787 Dreamliner Aircraft.

The ultramodern aircraft fitted with state-of-the-art features and facilities was deployed on the Cairo – Lagos route, which made its maiden flight into Lagos with pomp and pageantry recently.

The arrival was heralded with a water cannon salute and welcomed by high-profile guests and dignitaries from the diplomatic corps, Senior Airline Management staff, Industry Practitioners, and distinguished guests who arrived on the inaugural flight.

Mr. Muharram Abdelrahman, EgyptAir’s General Manager in Lagos expressed excitement over the development and said the Airline decided to deploy its brand new Dreamliner Aircraft on the Lagos route in order to offer the best quality service to its esteemed Nigerian customers and to appreciate their patronage.

As part of celebrations to welcome it’s Dreamliner to Lagos, EgyptAir also opened its newly refurbished Airport Office that has been exquisitely designed to meet customer comfort and offer efficient service delivery.

The newly refurbished office is fully fitted with modern and automated facilities that offer guests seamless one-stop services with an ambience of tranquility.

With the deployment of the Dreamliner on the Lagos route, the airline hopes to further grow its market share and gradually increase its frequency on the route to daily flights on an initial basis and double daily flights in the near future.

BY  Okechukwu Nnodim, Abuja

Four airports in Nigeria have been mapped out for the deployment of oil spill response units, the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency has said.

Director-General, NOSDRA, Musa Idris, told journalists in Abuja that the four airports include those in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kaduna and Calabar.

Idris, who disclosed this while briefing the press on the fire incident that recently gutted the OVH Tank Farm in Lagos, said the Minister of State for Environment, Sharon Ikeazor, had approached the aviation ministry on the need to have the oil spill response facilities at airports.

He noted that following the intervention of Ikeazor, the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, ordered the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria to create spaces for oil spill equipment and materials at the selected airports.

The NOSDRA boss stated that based on this and other concerns, the agency had been developing local capacity that would assist in combating oil spill and fire outbreaks in locations where oil commodities exist.

Idris said, “One of the key things that we have been doing here in this agency is to ensure that we have local capacity.

“Indeed, we are 70 per cent into an agreement with a local company that has capacity to assist both in terms of oil spills and fire incidents.

“We have the approval and endorsement of the Minister of State for Environment, who made visits to the Federal Ministry of Aviation to seek for places in four major airports in Nigeria including Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kaduna and Calabar.”

He explained that although oil had not been found in Kaduna State, the airport in Kaduna was picked because there exists a refinery in the state and the airport could be used to move oil commodities.

“Having consulted with the Minister of Aviation, he (Sirika) has given directive for FAAN to allocate spaces for us in those airports for aircraft hangar, as well as warehouses to store and stockpile oil response equipment and materials,” Idris stated.

On the fire outbreak in the Lagos tank farm, he said the agency in collaboration with the state and other stakeholders, were able to put the situation under control.