Last evening, during his 20th address to the nation on government measures to contain the spread of Covid-19 in the country, Uganda’s president announced that the country’s international airport and land borders will reopen and resume operations for tourists after over six-months closure.
In his televised national speech, the president also said any passengers arriving in Uganda must be in possession of a negative COVID-19 polymerize chain reaction (PCR) test result from an accredited laboratory in the country of origin.
The test should have been conducted within the last 72 hours before the scheduled departure from the country of origin. Returning Ugandans with negative PCR results will be allowed to go home, and the Health Ministry will only get their addresses for follow up.
The news has risen the spirits of travel enthusiasts who can now book their next flight with hopes of travelling in the near future. This was supplementary to the earlier announcement by the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) having passed out the first tentative schedule for international passenger flights for a period of three months effective October 1.
As full scale operation of the airport is underway, Dr James Ejul, the officer in charge of medical services at Entebbe Airport, said aircraft operators have been notified to release not more than 50 passengers at ago, upon landing at the airport.
More so, as part of the standard operating procedures (SOPs), all arriving passengers shall be required to test for COVID-19 before boarding the plane to Uganda. Likewise, those leaving Uganda for other countries shall also be required to have valid health certificates from the health ministry or undergo a rapid test at the airport before departure.
“Glass shields are to be introduced at check-in booths to reduce direct contact between the airport staff and passengers,” Eng. Sooma said.
According to the new plan, all doors in the airport terminal will be converted to automatic sensor opening non-touchable ones while all water taps will be replaced with non-touchable ones.
Entebbe International Airport was closed to passenger traffic since March except for evacuation and repatriation flights and cargo. The earlier closure of the airport has heavily impacted key sectors, including the tourism sector which is the country’s biggest foreign exchange earner.
In May, President Museveni announced that the country was set to lose $1.6 billion from the tourism sector since the airport had been shut from passenger flights and millions of tourists in the country are foreigners.
Uganda earned about Shs5. 8 trillion from tourism in the 2018/2019 financial year, making the sector the country’s leading foreign currency earner for the fifth year in a row, according to government data.
The number of tourists in 2019 reached 1,505,669 up from 1,402,409 in 2017. In the FY2018/19, the tourism sector accounted for 7.7 percent of the national GDP and 6.7 percent of total national employment after creating 667,600 jobs.
About Guide2Uganda
Guide2Uganda (www.guide2uganda.ug) is the most comprehensive source of information about Uganda that exists on the web, with more content on Uganda and surrounding towns, attractions, museums and galleries than any other online guide that currently exists for Uganda as well as being a dynamic news and comprehensive events driven site with content being added daily.
According to WeFollow & Peer Index (whom both measure online influence) we are among the most influential online media organizations in Uganda. We were also awarded for ‘’Best Destination Website in Uganda’’ by Jumia Travel Uganda in the 2017-2018 Africa Travel Awards. If you are planning a visit to Uganda you can always reach us on; info@guide2uganda.ug
