Kenya Airways planes parked at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport,
Nairobi. KQ reckons that nationalisation will help it compete
effectively with other state-owned carriers. PHOTO | REUTERS
Kenya Airways has said it will not suspend its flights to China following an outbreak of the deadly coronavirus.
This
comes even as British Airways suspended flights to Beijing and Shanghai
after the UK government advised against non-essential travel to the
Asian country.
Kenya has also issued a travel advisory urging its citizens to refrain from making any unnecessary travels to China.
The national carrier has said that it is closely ‘monitoring’ the situation before it takes the next step.
The
KQ announcement comes as the Kenyan ambassador to China Sarah Serem
called on the airline to suspends flights to the country until the virus
is contained.
“We are monitoring this on a very
regular basis, as frequently as every one hour. We will make a decision
in collaboration with the government on when and if when we should
suspend the flights,” KQ acting chief executive officer Allan Kilavuka
said on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, a Kenyan passenger, on board a KQ flight from China,
was quarantined at the top referral hospital in Nairobi over the
suspected deadly virus.
Kenya Airways operates two daily non-stop flights on the Nairobi-Guangzhou route thrice a week.
“This
is very important to us, not just for the China route but an entire
network. It is a global issue and airlines are looking at it very
seriously. We have taken precautionary measures right from boarding, to
ensure that we do not allow on board anyone who hasn’t been cleared by
port health bureau of China. So anyone from Wuhan city in China will not
be allowed on our flights,” Mr Kilavuka said.
“On top
of that we are sterilising our aircrafts while our crew use protective
gear on and off the flight while in China. We are in close
collaborations with the port health at Jomo Kenyatta International
Airport (JKIA) and Guangzhou where we fly to as we seek to protect our
passengers.”
INVESTIGATIONS
The
Kenyan student who arrived from China with flu-like symptoms was placed
under isolation at the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) in the capital
Nairobi as a precautionary measure and to allow further investigations,
the health ministry said on Tuesday. The ministry added that further
laboratory tests were being undertaken, with comprehensive results
expected on Wednesday.
Officials said the 22-year-old
student had been in Wuhan, the Chinese city that is the epicentre of the
coronavirus outbreak, but had not contracted the deadly disease.
Several
countries are evacuating their citizens out of the Chinese city among
them United States and Japan as death toll rose to 132 and a first case
reported in Middle East on Wednesday.
Chinese health officials also reported that the number of confirmed cases have jumped to 5,974.
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