Rwanda’s national carrier RwandAir has announced new changes with the purpose to improve the safety of passengers amid the Covid-19 pandemic when it will resume its flights on August 1, one of the senior managers of the airline said Friday.
After more than three months since the coronavirus pandemic forced it to ground most of its fleet, the Chief Commercial Officer of RwandAir Gobena Mikael said the move is also aimed at ensuring passenger confidence in flights following weeks of halted operations.
For airlines meals and snack services, Mikael said that there is going to be a significant amendment from regular service to serving bottled drinks and packed snacks consequently reducing contacts between crew and passengers.
He noted that while this might be considered as reduction of level of service, it is geared at improving the safety of the crew and passengers during flights.
For long haul flights, RwandAir will adopt a lunch box type hot meal as opposed to the regular dinner, lunch and drinks service.
Other materials such as headsets, duvets and headrests, he said will be taken out, sanitized and replaced at the end of every trip.
“For materials such as headsets, duvets, headrests they will be sanitized and resealed. At the end of the trip, we will take them out and put new ones. Every seat belt, tray, and everything that is touched we have devised mechanisms to sanitize and clean them,” he said.
For instance, RwandAir will be introducing bonus mileage, flexible pricing, and refunds without charge among other things to be more attractive to consumers.
On regional airlines survival and recovery, he said that the region’s airlines have to work together in multiple aspects such as cooperation and sharing information to make sure they can stay ahead of the pandemic and to avoid having to halt operations in the event confirmed cases increase.
With closer collaboration, he said that the regional airlines will be able to learn patterns of the ailment and curb it without much interruption to operations.
The same cooperation, he said will serve the purpose in avoiding the onslaught of smaller regional airlines by major global airlines.
As opposed to protectionism, he proposed competition on the basis of aspects such as quality and delivery.
CU/abj/APA