[Coronavirus] Air Belgium organises a repatriation charter from Seychelles to France

On 31 March, Air Belgium continues to operate more repatriation flights, it is currently organising a charter from Seychelles to France, and the airline eyes many other special flights of the kind.

The Belgian long-haul airline will get home passengers stranded in Seychelles, with a flight to arrive at Paris Charles-de-Gaulle on the first day of April. It is expected that the aircraft will fly back to Brussels after its arrival in France.

The Airbus A340-300 registered OO-ABA departed Brussels on 30 March, heading to Djibouti, a night stop for the crew members and then flew to Mahé where it just arrived.

Air Belgium should continue soon its voyage soon, as Niky Terzakis, Air Belgium CEO, relates on Facebook : “Air Belgium continues to repatriate stranded travellers from:
Seychelles, Algeria, Lima, Peru, Nicaragua and more… Very grateful to Air Belgium’s incredible employees!”

KF248P BRU – JIB 16:40 – 00:21+1 30/03/2020 A343 OOABA

KF248P JIB – SEZ 16:52 – 20:51 31/03/2020 A343 OOABA

KF2482 SEZ – CDG 23:30 – 07:00+1 31/03/2020 A343 OOABA

KF248x CDG – BRU xx:xx – xx:xx 01/04/2020 A343 OOABA

During an interview to Le Soir, Niky Terzakis said: “I would like to make clear that we operate repatriation flights with the usual fare, it is part of the airline spirit since the beginning”, adding that he’s shocked to see how some airlines use this opportunity for making money on travellers’ back.

He told: “We have a lot of demand, we could fly our 4 aircraft: Latin America, China, Pacific, but from 20 demands, we choose one. It is so heavy to organise, hard to get authorisations, position crews, and there are serious risks. If one is contaminated, then the whole crew is in quarantine. The obstacles to organise every flights are numerous: we have to get the agreements together with landing rights, manage particular restrictions given by every country crossed or overflown, we only have 2 hours on the spot to embark everyone and ensure maintenance, following rules that change all the time.”

The crew who fly these repatriation flights are only volunteers, same for Brussels Airlines.

The national flag carrier said that the ground crew of Brussels Airlines at Dakar Blaise Diagne helped Air Belgium.