The Emirates flag carrier Emirates announced on Thursday that it will temporarily suspend all flights to South Africa. No services will be operated from Dubai between 16 January and Thursday 28 January. The airline stated that the reasons for the suspension were “operational”, but did not provide any further details.
The decision affects all Emirates passengers between Dubai and South Africa. Those who take over from other places with SA as their final destination may not board on their original point of origin.
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Final flights before suspension departed on Friday
The final services before the break take effect are today, Friday, January 15th. Two flights have already departed from Dubai to Cape Town (EK772) and Johannesburg (EK763), with the latter later that day to Durban (EK775).
‘Emirates regrets the inconvenience caused. Affected customers should contact their travel agent or Emirates contact center to discuss options, ” an Emirates spokesman told Gulf News.
Emirates has a six-week service to Cape Town and a daily service to Johannesburg. Both routes are operated by the airline’s Boeing 777s.
Simple Flying has asked Emirates for more details on the suspensions, but has not yet received a response during publication. This article can be updated later with further information.
SA flights banned in several countries
Although it should be reiterated that Emirates says that the suspension is due to operational reasons, the suspension does come because several countries have banned flights from South Africa.
Following the confirmation of a new, more contagious type of SARS-CoV-2 in mid-December, Israel, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Denmark, Turkey, the United Kingdom and Hong Kong banned flights from the country. Many of these also do not allow any traveler who has visited SA in the past few weeks.
The Netherlands and Switzerland did the same early on, but later partially reversed their decisions. The former allows arrivals based on a negative PCR test, not older than 72 hours before the scheduled arrival time. The latter opened up for limited flight operations to enable Swiss citizens to return home.
More contagious, not deadly
Of the first countries to ban South African flights on December 20, Israel detected at least four cases of the new tribe due to advanced tests. Although the variant is more contagious, there is no indication that it is more deadly.
Cases in South Africa have increased since the beginning of the new year, and the country has closed its land borders.
“The number of new infections, hospital admissions and deaths is now higher than it has been since the first case was recorded in our country in March 2020,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement earlier this week by Simple Flying. He added that the country has recorded nearly 190,000 new cases of COVID-19 since New Year’s Day.
Are you affected by the Emirates flight suspension, or do you know someone who it is? Tell us about it in the comments.