TAAG: COVID-19 - Angola Banned From European Airspace

Angola Airline (TAAG) issued the following announcement on July 2.

Angola Airline (TAAG) has been banned from flying to Portugal and the whole European Shengen Space, due to the rising cases of the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the country as of late.

The decision follows recommendations from a meeting of the European Union's concerned organisation that has spared Africa's Rwanda, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, out of a list that includes Brazil and the United States of America.

According to a note from the meeting that reached Angop on Thursday, only planes from 11 countries which have the covid-19 pandemic under control are free to operate in the said EU airspace.

Commenting on the fact, TAAG spokesperson, Carlos Vicente, considered the ban fair as Angola is not the only country affected by the measure on account of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

In 2019, TAAG was recertified to unrestrictedly operate until 22 May 2021, after the company complied with all IATA's Operational Safety Audit requirements (IOSA).

IOSA is an internationally recognised evaluation system to check the compliance of air companies' operations and has nothing to do with the present EU ban which is solely associated with covid-19.

In the last 24 hours, Angola has detected 24 new positive cases of covid-19, its highest in one day since the pandemic hit the country in March this year, bringing the total to 315 infections.

According to the secretary of State for Public Health during the daily covid-19 update briefing on Thursday evening, two deaths were also reported in the last 24 hours.

With the newly reported cases, the country's covid-19 records show 315 infections (231 locally transmitted, 35 imported and 17 with unknown links), 97 recoveries, 201 active patients and 17 deaths.

Original source can be found here.