Qatar Airways suspends flights from UAE, South Africa, Rwanda

Qatar Airways suspends flights from UAE, South Africa, Rwanda

Qatar Airways (QA) suspended acceptance of new bookings from the UAE, South Africa, and Rwanda til Monday, February the 15th.

#QatarAirways has temporarily suspended acceptance of new bookings from UAE for the next 7 days due to UK government concerns. South Africa & Rwanda are also temporarily suspended – exceptions include GCC nationals & Resident Permit Holders returning to other GCC countries. pic.twitter.com/UQFhcPK1xs

— Qatar Airways (@qatarairways) January 29, 2021

The UAE suspension is due to UK government concerns. While these concerns were not clarified, there has been a vast surge in the number of Coronavirus cases that were direct results of travelling between the UK and UAE.

The exception to this is GCC citizens and residents who are returning to other GCC countries. Additionally, Rwanda was also added to UK’s red list countries, according to the Transport Secretary Grant Shapps 

In an interview with Doha New, aviation analyst Alex Macheras said, “The UK and other nations decided to ban travel between their nations and the United Arab Emirates over COVID19 spread concerns, but specifically over concerns of the more infectious strain of the virus which was identified in South Africa.

Just last week, Denmark confirmed their only cases of the South African strain were from ‘infected travellers who had arrived from Dubai,”  and  “Naturally, in light of the latest UK ban, Qatar will want to ensure it’s working with the UK to ensure their public health bans are effective, while also retaining its own routes to/from the UK for essential travel from the rest of Qatar’s route network, this is especially important for countries like Australia, given over 30,000 Australians remain stuck outside their own country, many in the UK, with extremely limited options to return home.

Most have been on long waiting lists for several months due to the country’s limit on daily passenger arrivals, and are heavily reliant on Qatar Airways’ ongoing service to Australia,” He added.