Emirates sets date for resuming flights to Entebbe Airport

Emirates Airline announced it will resume flights to Entebbe International Airport on October 1, the same day the airport which had closed for months due to the covid-19 outbreak will be reopening.

UAE’s largest airline says the expansion to Entebbe brings its passenger destination network to 94 cities and it will be making three weekly flights on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays.

Qatar Airways, which is also set to resume flights to Entebbe on Oct. 2, will also operate the same number of trips.

President Museveni recently allowed the airport and borders to reopen for tourists, setting conditions of a Covid-19 negative test 72 hours before departure and zero physical interaction with locals.

The closure of the airport has heavily impacted key sectors, including the tourism sector which is the country's biggest foreign exchange earner. In May, President Museveni announced that the country was set to lose $1.6 billion from the tourism sector since the airport had been shut from passenger flights and millions of tourists in the country are foreigners.

Uganda earned about Shs5. 8 trillion from tourism in the 2018/2019 financial year, making the sector the country's leading foreign currency earner for the fifth year in a row, according to government data.

The number of tourists in 2019 reached 1,505,669 up from 1,402,409 in 2017. In the FY2018/19, the tourism sector accounted for 7.7 percent of the national GDP and 6.7 percent of total national employment after creating 667,600 jobs.

Meanwhile, Emirates says the addition of Entebbe expands Emirates’ African network to 20 destinations, enabling customers to safely and easily connect to destinations across Europe, the Far East, the Americas, the Middle East and West Asia with one convenient stop in Dubai.

Emirates flight EK 729 will depart Dubai at 1030hrs, arriving in Entebbe at 1500hrs, while the return flight, EK 730, will depart Entebbe at 1700hrs, arriving in Dubai at 2325hrs.

Booking of tickets can be done on emirates.com, the Emirates App, Emirates sales offices, via travel agents as well as online travel agents. The UAE flag carrier airline says its customers can stopover or travel to Dubai as the city has re-opened for international business and leisure visitors.

To ensure the safety of travelers, visitors, and the community, Covid-19 PCR tests have been made mandatory for all inbound and transit passengers arriving to Dubai (and the UAE), including UAE citizens, residents and tourists, irrespective of the country they are coming from.

The airline says it is covering Covid-19-related medical expenses for customers, should they be diagnosed with the respiratory illness during their travel while they are away from home.

“This cover is immediately effective for customers flying on Emirates until 31 October 2020 (first flight to be completed on or before 31 October 2020), and is valid for 31 days from the moment they fly the first sector of their journey,” reads an official statement.

“This means Emirates customers can continue to benefit from the added assurance of this cover, even if they travel onwards to another city after arriving at their Emirates destination.”