Domestic Airlines are to be grounded for about two more weeks as a result of bad weather caused by the harmattan.<\/p>\n
The Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) in a “Notice to Air Men [NOTAM],” on Saturday December 5, warned that the weather may only be safe for flights after December 15, 2015.<\/p>\n
Domestic airlines would thus be grounded until that time, unless a dramatic change in the weather pattern.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”aEBAWCNjXbUYTH6JLL3irxnA5I4EG2v7″]This will hit hard on their revenues considering that the month of December, is the peak period for air travels due to the Christmas festivities.<\/p>\n
This also means that those who travel by air will be stranded and compelled to opt for road transport.<\/p>\n
Citi News<\/strong> has gathered that most of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and businesses that operate in the Northern Region have either resorted to using road transport or cancelled their appointments there for now.<\/p>\n Prior to the notice from the GCAA, some of the airline operators had cancelled scheduled flights since Wednesday as a result of the bad weather.<\/p>\n Ghana\u2019s harmattan season, which comes with cold and dryness particularly in the mornings, started becoming visible on Tuesday December 1.<\/p>\n As a result, domestic airlines like Starbow have since Wednesday suspended flights to the Northern Regional capital, Tamale.<\/p>\n Tamale, which is known to be a dry area, has thus been the most affected by the onset of the harmattan.<\/p>\n A source at the Kotoka International Airport who spoke to Citi News<\/strong> said some scheduled flights for Kumasi and Sunyani have also been cancelled.<\/p>\n Only a Starbow scheduled flight went to Takoradi on the morning of Friday December 4. All others were cancelled.<\/p>\n It is however unclear yet whether the situation will also affect international flights.<\/p>\n The Harmattan is a cold-dry and dusty trade wind, blowing over the West African subcontinent.<\/p>\n Harmattan is usually characterized by strong wind, which blows southwest from the Sahara desert into the Gulf of Guinea between November and March.<\/p>\n The resultant effect of this dryness among other things is the poor visibility that affects air travel. Domestic Airlines are to be grounded for about two more weeks as a result of bad weather caused by the harmattan. The Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) in a “Notice to Air Men [NOTAM],” on Saturday December 5, warned that the weather may only be safe for flights after December 15, 2015. Domestic airlines would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":50943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[43,38,4],"class_list":["post-172122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-foresight-medical-center","tag-palaver-newspaper","tag-st-augustines-college"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=172122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=172122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=172122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=172122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nBy: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"