Page 57 - World Airnews Magazine December 2020

NEWS

HOW ENTEBBE AIRPORT IS

OPERATING AMIDST COVID-19

hours indicated by the destination country country are foreigners.
take priority. Uganda earned about Shs5. 8 trillion from
When Entebbe international At the airport, passengers must maintain tourism in the 2018/2019 financial year,
airport reopened to passenger flights in a social distance of 1.5 metres apart from making the sector the country's leading
October following months of closure due each other within the passenger terminal. foreign currency earner for the fifth year in
to the Covid-19-prompted lockdown, a For passengers arriving into the a row, according to government data.
number of standard operating practices country, most of the rules that apply in The number of tourists in 2019 reached
were rolled out to facilitate the safe use of the departure case also apply here on 1,505,669 up from 1,402,409 in 2017. In the
the airport. top of other SOPs like having an authentic FY2018/19, the tourism sector accounted
But, according to the Uganda Civil and valid negative COVID-19 Polymerase for 7.7 percent of the national GDP and 6.7
Aviation Authority (UCAA), people continue Chain Reaction (PCR) test certificate from percent of total national employment after
to ask for clarity about these procedures, an accredited laboratory in the country creating 667,600 jobs.
which evoked the Authority to release a of origin issued within 72 hours before Entebbe international airport facilitated
statement explaining them (SOPs) in detail. boarding to Uganda. a total of 42,633 passengers both to and
For instance, according to UCAA, “A passenger without the negative from Uganda in the month of October, it
passengers that are leaving Uganda need COVID-19 PCR test certificate will be denied was reported recently.
to arrive at the airport 4 hours before a entry and the Airline shall be obliged to Since commercial passenger operations
scheduled flight's departure time. take back the passenger,” UCAA said. resumed at the airport on October 1,
They will then be subjected to tempera- “If it is a returning Ugandan with an at least 23,867 passengers arrived in
ture screening on entry to the airport and expired COVID-19 PCR test certificate, he/ the country, 15,461 others departed to
departure hall and they must wear a face she will be allowed to enter the country, other countries, while 3,305 were transit
mask appropriately within the airport. but shall have the test done and will be passengers, according to the Uganda Civil
Passengers are also encouraged quarantined at their own cost till the Aviation Authority rds.
to sanitize after touching surfaces or results come out.” “The average number of passengers
documents and must present an authentic The government was prompted to per day is so far about 1,400. In 2019, we
and valid negative COVID-19 Polymerase re-open the airport because of how it was registered a total of 1,980,000 internation-
Chain Reaction (PCR) test certificate issued affecting the tourism sector, which is the al passengers, which is an average of about
within 120 hours before travel even if the country's biggest foreign exchange earner. 5,400 passengers per day,” Vianney Luggya,
country the passenger is going to does not In May, president Museveni announced the UCAA spokesperson, said.
require it. that the country was set to lose (US) $1.6 According to data from the ministry of
According to UCAA, in case the destina- billion from the tourism sector since the health, Uganda has so far registered 14 403
tion country requires a COVID-19 PCR test airport had been shut from passenger cases of Covid-19, 132 deaths and 7771
certificate below 120 hours, the number of flights and millions of tourists in the recoveries. Q

World Airnews | December Extra 2020
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