Coronavirus: Aviation Authority to introduce measures to mitigate revenue losses

The Ghana Civil Aviation Authority is counting its losses as activities at the airport are grinding to a halt.

Airports form part of the transportation bloodstream through which coronavirus has rapidly spread.

The president on Saturday ordered all of Ghana’s borders including airports to be shut by midnight of the same day. This directive, as expected, has had an adverse effect on the revenue stream of the authority.

The Director-General of the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority Simon Allotey says the aviation authority will re-strategize to reduce operational cost.

“What we need to do within the aviation industry is to sit down, re-strategize and take measures to reduce operational cost. Certain projects which are not critical could be put on hold. And we also need to look at what we call stuff expenses.

“We have already ban staff overseas travel. There are further stringent measures taken to try to minimize the expenses, he noted.

Despite coronavirus trouncing aviation operations and leading to several countries laying off redundant staff, Simon Allotey says his outfit is not considering lay-offs now.

“We do not want to shut down the airport or say lay off workers. We haven’t gotten to that but we need to introduce measures to reduce operational cost.”

Coronavirus in Ghana

The government has confirmed 25 new cases of Coronavirus in the country.

This brings to total, 52, the number of cases confirmed in the country with two deaths recorded.

The 25 new cases were confirmed as part of the 1,030 people who arrived at the country’s airport hours after the closure of the country’s borders and were subjected to mandatory quarantine.

The Minister of Health, Kweku Agyeman-Manu who announced on Tuesday, March 24, 2020, said other persons in mandatory quarantine are yet to be tested.

“Out of the 185 test results received, we have 25 of those quarantined tested positive. If we add on to the earlier number of 27, it means we have 52 people testing positive in our country at the moment,” the minister said.