The limit of 35 passengers on each arrival flight or 1,000 passengers per day traveling to Kuwait International Airport, which would have ended next Saturday, February 6 has been extended until the end of February, said the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Al Qabas daily reported.
The consequences to this decision are expected to continue, as when earlier it was launched, there was a huge spike in air ticket prices, while some airlines cancelled their scheduled flights due to the economic inefficiency of commercial operation, Al Qabas daily reported. It is estimated that around 60,000 travel reservations were cancelled last month.
Only arriving passengers are impacted and not departures, while domestic workers were excluded from the limit. The arriving domestic workers will be subject to institutional quarantine as there are housing designated for domestic workers to quarantine for 14 days.
The likely reason for the continuation of the limit is health authorities in the country raising the alert level over increasing cases of travellers arriving in the country with negative PCR certificates, but test results at the airport show they are infected with the Coronavirus. They present the certificates to show they have tested negative for the coronavirus in accredited laboratories from the departing countries, which act as confirmation they are free of infections.
A meeting will be held on Thursday involving officials from the Ministry of Health and the Civil Aviation Administration to discuss the most important new mechanisms and solutions to confront and control rising coronavirus cases among travellers, including a decision to close the airport, Al Qabas daily reported, quoting Government sources.
The sources said that the meeting will address the issue of expediting the procedures for preparing testing sites for arrivals coming to the country from abroad, which have been agreed upon by airlines.
The sources stressed to the daily that the situation is alarming, which calls for tightening regulations and ensuring adherence to the health requirements, in particular, warning that the continuation of weddings, events, and gatherings will cause an increase in infections and the spread of the epidemic.
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