{"id":281324,"date":"2017-01-03T09:02:43","date_gmt":"2017-01-03T09:02:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=281324"},"modified":"2017-01-03T09:02:43","modified_gmt":"2017-01-03T09:02:43","slug":"domestic-airlines-record-huge-losses-due-to-harmattan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=281324","title":{"rendered":"Domestic airlines record huge losses due to Harmattan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Domestic Airlines are counting their losses following the harsh harmattan weather which led to them cancelling majority of their flights at the latter part of 2016.<\/p>\n<p>[contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;IEcMUVzhzTXEVTq8xo4Dwf9xTdo6Raye&#8221;]According to them, the unfavourable weather condition has impacted negatively on their operations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have had to cancel some flights and have lost money as a result. If people book to travel and we can\u2019t take them we lose money. The same thing happened last year although it was worse,\u201d Chief Operating Officer of Africa World Airlines, Captain Samuel Thompson told <strong>Citi Business News<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe operate fully when the visibility is good. We have been able to operate most of our flights to Kumasi and Tamale and we have been going to Lagos regularly,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>At least five to six flights were cancelled each day between December 26th and 28th, 2016 with the onset of the Harmattan.<\/p>\n<p>The affected areas were flights from Accra to Takoradi, Tamale and Kumasi.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-61237 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/citibusinessnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/starbow.jpg\" alt=\"starbow\" width=\"630\" height=\"419\" \/><\/p>\n<p>On Thursday [December 29, 2016], the visibility in Accra was below the minimum but subsequently it has been fine in Tamale and in Kumasi so that has been sorted out,\u201d Captain Thompson further explained.<\/p>\n<p>The meteorological service is however yet to provide information to guide the planning by the various airline companies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe meteorological service has not been able to tell us when this whole weather phenomenon will stop but the harmattan is a season so maybe it will prevail for another month or so but whenever the visibility is good enough we will fly,\u201d the airline companies stated.<strong><em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For the CEO of Starbow Airlines, James Eric Antwi who also spoke to <strong>Citi Business News<\/strong> said they have so far been operational throughout the harmattan season.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>By: Anita Arthur\/citibusinessnews.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Domestic Airlines are counting their losses following the harsh harmattan weather which led to them cancelling majority of their flights at the latter part of 2016. [contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;IEcMUVzhzTXEVTq8xo4Dwf9xTdo6Raye&#8221;]According to them, the unfavourable weather condition has impacted negatively on their operations. \u201cWe have had to cancel some flights and have lost money as a result. If [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"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":[32,171,11,1166],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-local-economy","category-top-stories","category-transport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281324","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\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=281324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=281324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=281324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=281324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}