Domestic airlines refund money to passengers

Domestic airlines in the country are refunding money paid for tickets bought by prospective travellers because they are unable to fly due to the hazy harmattan weather.

So far, the Africa World Airline (AWA), one of the domestic airline operators, has refunded money to about 250 passengers who purchased tickets earlier.

This follows the inability of the airline to continue its operations as a result of poor visibility.

Currently, the Meteorological Department has announced that the weather will persist until December 13, 2015.

Refund

Speaking to the Daily Graphic, the Chief Operations Officer of AWA, Mr Samuel Thompson, said in situations where flights were cancelled through no fault of the passenger or the airline, the passenger was either put on another flight or the money was refunded.

He explained that the visibility required by airlines to fly safely  to Tamale is 3,000 metres, while that of Kumasi is 1,600 metres  and  Accra is 800 metres.

“Now, since Wednesday, because of the harmattan, the visibility has dropped drastically. From Thursday to now, the visibility in Tamale was hovering around 1,000 metres. This is way below the minimum requirement,” he expanded..

Mr Thompson further said that since Thursday, the visibility in Kumasi had hovered between 200 and 1,000 metres, adding that as a safety precaution, when the visibility was low, the airlines were mandated to cancel flights.

Impact on business

Mr Thompson was worried that the situation was adversely affecting business, “because when the aircraft is grounded like this, we lose money.”

He was hopeful that the weather would normalise for business to resume, explaining that apart from the company losing money, the situation was also affecting the business activities of passengers.

He said this year’s harmattan weather had been serious because in the previous years, they had only had to cancel one or two flights a day and not all flights.