The French national carrier, Air France, has suspended flights to and from Mali and Burkina
Faso.
Air France made this known on Monday after the Niger Republic’s junta announced the closure of its airspace following the threat of intervention by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
The suspension is to last till August 11.
According to Reuters, the company announced the development on Monday.
This comes a day after Niger’s military rulers announced the closure of the country’s airspace due to the “threat of intervention”.
“The closure of Niger’s airspace dramatically widens the area over which most commercial flights between Europe and southern Africa cannot fly,” FlightRadar24, a flight tracking service, said in a blog post.
“Flights must already take a detour of sorts around Libya and Sudan.
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“With Niger’s airspace now off limits as well, airlines flying between Europe and southern Africa will need to reroute and add 1000 or more extra kilometers to their flights, increasing the amount of fuel each flight will need and the flight time.”
The news agency quoted an Air France spokesperson as saying that the airline expected longer flight times from sub-Saharan hub airports and that flights between Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and Accra in Ghana were set to operate non-stop.
A spokesperson for Brussels Airlines added that flight times could be between an hour and a half to three and a half hours longer for rerouted flights and could include a fuel stop, Reuters said.
READ ALSO: Coup: Tinubu meets governors sharing boundaries with Niger
ECOWAS, a regional political and economic union of 15 countries located in West Africa, has threatened to restore democracy in Niger by force.
Similarly, a flight tracking service, FlightRadar24, stated on its Twitter handle on Monday: “The closure of Niger’s airspace adds to the difficulties faced by airlines flying between Europe and southern Africa, adding 1000 kilometres and more than an hour of flight time to some routes.”
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