With an aim to combat, the spread of the covid19 in Uganda, the president of Uganda Yoweri Museveni issued a directive of locking down most of the driving sectors of the country. One of the things that were put to closure was Entebbe international airport and all the border entries of the country. It is should be noted the first case of covid19 in Uganda was gotten at the airport who was a Ugandan trader returning home from a business trip in Dubai.
Flights to and from Entebbe airport were put to halt for 32 days at the first presidential directive in March and only the cargo services were allowed to transact. More to that, when the covid19 situation worsened around the global, the only international airport in Uganda was closed indefinitely.
However in the past few week, there has been some beacon of hope, the spread of coronavirus is being fought well and some countries have eased the lockdown and Uganda too. In Uganda, there has an opening of some of the sectors of which the president termed as the essential services like the ground and public transport within the country, shopping malls, public offices and other private ones though the airport and the border points are still closed.
Since some other countries have eased the lockdown, different airlines like the fly emirates and Ethiopian airlines have written to the Civil Aviation Authority to advise the government of Uganda to reopen the airport to start off business. The feedback from the Authority revealed that they needed some time to look at things in perspective whereby they will have to involve the ministry of transport and the president to seek advice on the different measures to set up at the airport to avoid the spread of the virus when business resumes.
The intended time to open Entebbe international airport is 26th June 2020 but the airport management needs 150 billion shillings to put everything to normal like covering up the losses and expenses made ever since the closure was made and also to put up facilities and measures to be used in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus at the airport in the future. What they called post covid19 work frame.
A lot has been at stake during the coronavirus period, different workers at the airport have been laid off and other have been forced into pay cuts. For example the DAS handling services and Entebbe handling services, have given some of their workers indefinite leaves without pay (furlough) while other have been given half salaries with reasons of cutting costs due to the slow business at the airport.
