Aviation minister hints Airports may be opened this weekend for domestic use
The Aviation Minister, Kofi Adda, has given the strongest hint that domestic flights may resume this weekend.
According to him, the Ghana Airport Company Limited had instituted precautionary measures at all airports in the country.
Addressing the media during a disinfection exercise at the Kotoka International Airport by a waste management company, Zoomlion Ghana Limited, the minister said the reopening of Ghana’s airport for business would begin with allowing domestic flights to operate.
“The airport company, led by the port health officials would make sure that all the things that need to be installed to support the implementation of the protocol would take place.
“All the hand-washing devices, sanitizers, and anything that needs to be done would be made available. And that would be checked by the airport company and port health officials to ensure that all that is in place before we start operating. We are deliberately doing this because we want to start domestic flights first,” he said.
“In all of Africa, we are the only country that closed down the airport and is about to begin [open] so we have to make sure that we do it well and right so we can lead the way and set the example for other African countries to follow. Perhaps getting towards the weekend, we’ll now begin the domestic flights,” he stated.
President Akufo-Addo, in his third address to the nation on coronavirus on March 21, announced a two-week closure of the country’s borders. This included the closure of the country’s Airports.
The President said the closure, however, did not affect goods or cargo.
At the time of the closure of the country’s borders, Ghana had recorded seven (7) COVID-19 cases.
The decision to close the borders was part of stringent measures taken by the government to stop the importation of coronavirus infections into the country.
After the announcement of the closure, there have been two more extensions of the closure of the borders.
The ban on social gathering including the closure of schools remains in force as part of measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus.