Multitudes of Ugandan travelers earlier this week remained astray at Entebbe International Airport while they missed out their flight to the United Arab Emirates aboard Emirates Airline as a result of delays in issue of their Covid-19 results by a Laboratory called Safari Lab, a private PCR antigen testing facility authorized by Government to test for Coronavirus at the Airport.
According to a source at the Airport, approximately 300 passengers were left in desperation when they missed out their flights to the UAE as Safari Lab sent results at 2:45pm just 15 left to close time as Emirates Airline closed its gates by 3pm.
The hospital was outweighed by huge numbers of travelers as it could not work on every traveller given the limited time although it had initially charged each passenger Shs 250,000 for the test making a grand smiling total of Shs75m in the shortest time possible.
According to the new measures in the United Arab Emirates to contain the spread of new Covid- 19 variants in the middle east gulf, visitors planning to travel and get entry access must atleast have at hand a Covid-19 valid Vaccination certificate irrespective of the type of vaccine or must atleast have tested for Covid-19 six hours prior to the flight as failure to comply on this one isn’t allowed entry access into the United Arab Emirates.
However, Frustrated passengers expressed their anger and dissatisfaction brought about by the mess as some were heard asking on is to remit their ticket cost loss and whether who was to repay for them now that those supposed to be used were invalid since the plane had elevated onto the skies enroute to Dubai International Airport (DXB).
One Tweep on Twitter tweeted, ‘’I experienced such thing in March as the officers in charge claimed that the gates were close at 1pm as the flight was at 3pm,” while some tweeps found it hilarious making jokes about the matter and asked, if this was because of the US$10 tax that is in the process of being introduced and will be paid by anyone that leaves the country using the Entebbe International Airport.
Currently, there’s no official communication on the matter from the Civil Aviation Authority or Emirates Airline.
It should be recalled that, in October 2020, almost same incident happened when more than 50 passengers missed out their flights as a result of showing up at the Airport with expired Covid-19 negative test certificates.
According to the new preventative guidelines issued by Government under the Ministry of Health and World Health Organization and effected on 1st October, 2020 as Entebbe International Airport was reopened for commercial flights after almost six months of no commercial passenger flights activity due to the Lockdown to contain the spread of Coronavirus, all travellers transiting through the Airport were as a prerequisite mandated to present a negative PCR COVID-19 test certificate issued within 120 hours before their departure time, while incoming passengers must have a negative PCR COVID-19 test certificate issued within 72 hours before their flight. Although many that couldn’t comply with the guidelines missed out on flights as on October 2nd, health workers blocked 45 passengers from boarding a flight to the United Arab Emirates. The travellers presented expired COVID-19 test certificates that were issued before September 28, 2020 yet at the time, the UAE only allowed travellers with a negative PCR COVID-19 test certificate issued within 96 hours before departure. On the same note, On October 7, four Ugandans including one female adult and three minors also missed their flight to Tunisia after presenting expired certificates although the certificates were issued on September 16th after they secured clearance from the ministries of Health and Foreign Affairs to leave Uganda. Also, a female passenger missed her flight after she received her results three days after the testing and by the time she received soft copies of the valid certificates, the plane had already departed from Entebbe.
Similar unfortunate incident also happened to another female Ugandan as she missed a flight on October 8th while expected to board the 11 pm Fly Dubai flight to UAE. She cried when the health officials turned her away.
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