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Yemeni airspace closes, longer flight times between Seychelles and Middle East |28 March 2015

Flights between Seychelles and the Middle East are currently taking a longer route to reach their destinations due to the closure of the Yemeni airspace.
In a communiqué released yesterday, the Seychelles Civil Aviation Authority (SCAA) wrote that the Yemen’s Civil Aviation Authority took the decision to close their airspace on Thursday as a precaution to commercial aviation after military activities erupted in the region of Aden in Yemen.

Airlines are therefore making a detour to avoid the Sanaa airspace and are being dispatched out in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean using Muscat and Bombay airspace. This is affecting the Emirates Airline and Air Seychelles/ Etihad flights schedule.

In the case of Emirates Airline, the flying time has increased by approximately 45 minutes, while for Air Seychelles/ Etihad it has slightly over an hour added to the flight times for the Seychelles – Abu Dhabi sector and vice versa.

Other than those travelling to Seychelles hundreds of flights using the Yemen airspace to access the Indian Ocean region as well as large parts of Africa en route from the Gulf area, and also services to and from Europe transiting in the Yemeni airspace are being affected.

Esmée Samson, general manager for Air Navigation Services at the SCAA said “yesterday (Thursday) we also had overflying traffic from Europe to the Indian Ocean islands which were routing mostly in the Nairobi airspace but has as of today (Friday) resumed their normal routing in the Seychelles airspace with their detour being further north.”

Seychelles as a contracted state of International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO) has welcomed this cautious approach although this situation will bring about considerable additional costs and slightly longer flight times.

Foreign Affairs and Transport Minister Joël Morgan said: “Safety, security and passenger rights have to be safeguarded at all costs always. Passengers travelling to our region can rest assured that as a government and as a contracting state of ICAO we will always err on the side of caution and support actions from other authorities who are doing just that.”

The communiqué adds that for the moment it is unclear for how long this situation will last, but the SCAA is monitoring the situation very closely as well as the ICAO Eastern and Southern African Office in Nairobi.

 

 

 

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