SILMIYA YOUSUF
COLOMBO : Sri Lankan government has suspended the arrival of passengers from eight African countries and six Gulf countries as part of its Covid prevention programme, while the national carrier SriLankan has cancelled some of its scheduled flights to the concerned destinations and Saudi Arabian Airlines has suspended all its flights to Colombo from the Kingdom from July 1.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic situation, on instructions received from the National Operations Center For Prevention of Covid -19 Outbreak,(NOCPCO) Task Force, the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka has announced on Monday, June 28, directed all online and offline airlines that passengers with a travel history in the past 14 days to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates will not be permitted to disembark in Sri Lin Sri Lanka with effect from OOO1 hrs on 1st July 2021 (local Time In Sri Lanka). The above restriction is applicable until 2359hrs on 13th of July 2021.
According to a circular from Captain Themiya Abeywickrama, Director General of Civil Aviation and Chief Executive Officer, the prohibited African countries include Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Passengers will not be permitted to disembark in Sri Lanka with effect from OOO1 hrs on 1st July 2021 (local Time In Sri Lanka). The restriction is applicable from July 1 until 2359hrs on 31st of July 2021.
Spokesman from the SriLankan Airlines,Deepal Perera said that the airline will continue its services with restricted movements since passengers can go out of Colombo to these destinations and cargo flights could operate both ways.
According to sources from the Saudi Arabian Airlines, flights to Colombo from the Kingdom have been totally suspended for the whole of July and it is diverting their flights to Maldives.
According to a flight schedule released by Sri Lankan Airlines,it has canceled its flight to Riyadh on July 1st,6th and 10th , Dammam-July-3rd and 10th, to Doha- July 1st,2nd,7th and 9th, to Muscat :July 5th and 12th, and to Bahrain July 5th and 12th.
