…following Niger airspace closure
International air travellers may need to pay more and experience longer hours to and from various destinations due to the closure of Niger Republic’s airspace. Following the recent coup d’etat in Niger, the country’s military rulers announced the closure of the airspace due to threat of military intervention.
International airlines like Air France, British Airways, Lufthansa and Brussels Airlines have informed their customers of their plans henceforth due to the Niger airspace closure.
As for Air France, it suspended flights to and from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso and Bamako in Mali until August 11. Its spokesperson on Monday said the airline expected longer flight times from sub-Saharan hub airports and that flights between Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and Accra in Ghana were set to operate non-stop.
“With Niger’s airspace now off limits as well, airlines flying between Europe and southern Africa will need to reroute and add 1000 or more extra kilometres to their flights, increasing the amount of fuel each flight will need and the flight time.”
James Halstead, an aviation analyst, said airlines would mostly have to find alternative routes and difficulties should be limited given the small number of African air connections.
“I’m not sure this is huge disruption … it will affect routes from Europe to Nigeria and South Africa and probably from the Gulf of the Ethiopia to West Africa,” he said.
On the other hand, British Airways, in an emailed statement, apologized to their customers affected for the disruption to their journeys, assuring that they were working hard to get them on their way again as quickly as possible.
Also, the spokesmen for Lufthansa and Brussels Airlines said flight times could be between one-and-a-half and three-and-a-half hours longer for rerouted flights.
