RwandAir suspends flights to Juba

Rwanda’s national carrier has suspended flights to Juba, the capital of South Sudan following a failed coup against the government of President Salva Kiir over the weekend.John Mirenge, CEO RwandAir, confirmed that flights to Juba have been suspended until the situation returns to normal.“For safety reasons for all our stake holders, we have suspended our flights until the situation normalises” Mirenge told The New Times.The ongoing crisis in the world’s youngest nation began when unidentified uniformed personnel opened fire at a meeting of the ruling party Sunday night.Alice Katiti, RwandAir’s senior route manager in charge of the eastern route, said they are in touch with the officials in Juba to monitor how the situation unfolds.“The situation is beyond our control and, therefore, we have to wait and see how events unfold in the next few days, but it’s in our best interest that the situation normalises as fast as possible,” she said.She said RwandAir is in touch with passengers who had booked tickets to fly to Juba and was doing all that is necessarily to keep them updated.Katiti, however, denied that there were passengers who the airline had booked into hotels due to a canceled flight. “We are not accommodating anyone because the cancellation happened before the flight schedule but it’s also not in anyone’s interests to fly to a destination that’s in the middle of a crisis.”A night time curfew is now in place in South Sudan and at least four former ministers have reportedly been arrested after the alleged coup, which the government has linked to former vice president Riek Machar, who was sacked in July.President Kiir said on Monday the situation was under control though gunfire still rang out in the capital Juba yesterday, for the third day in a row.Tony Barigye, communications manager Rwanda Civil Aviation Authority, said that the authority had not received any complaints from passengers and aircraft operations managers, an indication that the situation is under control.RwandAir’s Bombardier CRJ 900NG aircraft bought in November last year flies to Juba every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.The Juba flight was launched mid October taking the destinations of the national carrier to 15.A Kigali-Juba return ticket goes for about US$440.RwandAir operates regional flights to Nairobi and Mombasa in Kenya, Entebbe in Uganda, Bujumbura in Burundi, as well as Dar es Salaam and Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. It also serves Johannesburg, Dubai, Lagos, Accra, Libreville and Brazzaville.Douala in Cameroon and Abidjan in Ivory Coast are also planned for 2014.

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RwandAir suspends flights to Juba