Govt spacing repatriation flights to decongest Entebbe airport

Kampala, Uganda |  THE INDEPENDENT |  The Civil Aviation Authority – CAA says repatriation flights scheduled on the same day will be spaced by a minimum of four hours inorder to decongest Entebbe International Airport amidst the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic concerns. 

This is after some stranded Ugandans and legal residents who   returned from different countries in the past few days decried the long waiting hours and congestion at the Airport.   

An average repatriation flight has 100 people who take about two hours to complete the screening and strict scanning procedures at the airport. 

However, where there are more people, congestion and handling delays there are big challenges.

For instance, the 514 people who returned from the United States of America and Qatar last Saturday spent an average of five hours, being screened and their luggage and documents scanned, before they were taken for institutional quarantine. Some of the returnees complained about the issue on various social media platforms.

The Health Ministry deployed 8 health workers to screen the returnees while six immigration officers processed the travel documents, resulting in handling time of 20 minutes per passenger. 

However, some the returnees told Uganda Radio Network – URN that the biggest nightmare was at the baggage carousel where it took as long as two hours for some passengers to reclaim all their luggage. Returnees can only get their luggage after disinfection. 

As a result, returnees, including parents who had toddlers, were frustrated about the long waiting hours and the congestion at the airport. This affected some returnees to arrive at the quarantine centres between 11pm and 2am yet their flights had  landed before 6pm.    

John Baptist Imokola, an assistant Lecturer at Makerere University Department for Journalism and Communication who returned from USA says he left the airport after 11pm and arrived at the quarantine centre in Kampala at 1am.  

Blanshe Musinguzi, a student who had been stranded in the USA says he arrived at the quarantine centre after 2am.     

“And this is what they had been telling us for months that they are planning to receive returnees in an orderly manner. But we were struck by chaos and incompetence at the airport. There wasn’t anything like social distancing,” he remarked.

Now, Kenneth Otim, the principal public affairs officer at Civil Aviation Authority – CAA, says the responsible government agencies have learnt a lesson from last week’s congestion.    

Otim explains that the congestion was a result of three flights landing at almost the same time yet passengers are not allowed to exit the terminal to the land side, which normally addresses the congestion issue.                             

The same incident happened on July 2nd where two flights, one from Europe via Addis Ababa and Southern Africa, landed two hours apart.         

He however says that due to limited space at the airport, changes have since been made by slotting flights within the week and those on the same are separated by at least four hours.

For instance, the two flights from Qatar and West Africa that were cleared to land at Entebbe on July 24th, 2020. The group from Qatar arrived at 5:30pm, while the one from West Africa was expected at 9pm, though it arrived at 1:30 am due to stop overs in two other airports.         

However, Prof. Francis Omaswa, a renown cardiovascular surgeon, who returned from the United Kingdom on July 2nd says apart from spacing flights, there is need to increase number of health, immigration and customs officers to expedite handling at the airport.       

He however commends the government and all officers handling  returnees amidst the challenges overseas and clearance at the airport.         

Prof. Omaswa, is also Executive Director of African Center for Global Health and Social Transformation (ACHEST), a non-governmental organization.

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