Aviation This Week – April Edition 2

Highlights for this week’s aviation industry news are topical happenings from April 5 -10, 2021. Find the highlights below:

Ho Airport to go commercial by middle of April

After its completion some years ago, the Ho Airport is expected to begin commercial operations on April 15, 2021. This follows an earlier indication given by the Ghana Airports Company at the beginning of the year as well as last week after the Transport Minister’s visit to the facility to ascertain its operational readiness.

Regional airline, Africa World Airlines has expressed its interest in operating 2-times weekly flight to the airport.

Asantehene Advises Transport Minister to Probe Accusations Levelled against Airports MD

The King of the Ashanti Kingdom, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II has asked the Transport Minister to investigate recent allegations of mismanagement and embezzlement levelled against the Managing Director of the Ghana Airports Company, Mr. Yaw Kwawa. The Asantehene in an interaction with the Minister said pending the outcome of the investigation it would be known whether the Mr. Kwawa should be sacked or not. This he believes will let sleeping dogs lie.

Qatar Airways Operates Fully Vaccinated Flight, Emirates to Follow Today

Qatar Airways on April 7, 2021 became the first global airline to operate a fully vaccinated flight from its hub, Hamad International Airport. The fight which was operated with a fully vaccinated crew and passengers afforded passengers an experience with Qatar’s touchless in-flight entertainment system.

This initiative by Qatar is similar to special flight EK2021 which Emirates will operate today across the United Arab Emirates with fully vaccinated flight crew and passengers.

Emirates Extends its Rebooking Policy

Emirates says customers who have tickets issued from the airline before September 30, 2020 and after October 1, 2020 for travels until December 31, 2021 can now rebook anytime within 36 months and 24months respectively at no cost.

Customers who bought directly from the airline will have their tickets automatically extended whereas persons who bought from travel agents will have to seek the assistance of their travel agents ahead of the expiration of their tickets.

Ethiopian Celebrates 75years of Existence

Ethiopian Airlines on April 8, 2021 celebrated its 75 years of existence in the aviation industry. The airline which so far has not sought any form of government bail out in spite of the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic says it intends to share its expertise with others in order to create a competitive African aviation industry.

Meanwhile the airline has scored 91% on-time performance for all planned global flights over the last three months to beat the industry’s average of 85%.

TAP Aiming to Expand Amidst Pandemic

TAP Air Portugal which usually connects some Ghanaian travelling public to Lisbon, São Tomé and Príncipe and Cape Verde says it aims at expanding its global route network operations amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The airline aims at reaching about 900 weekly flights by August through flight frequency increment and an expansion to eight new routes in Europe and Africa.

Authored

Mark Ofosu II Twitter: M__ofosu