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Air France: Flights to Repatriate European Nationals
Posted On 20 Mar 2020
Tag: Air France, Airlines, c25357c, c64496c, coronavirus (COVID-19), coronavirus Greece, Coronavirus impact Greece, Coronavirus measures Greece, coronavirus pandemic, coronavirus travel ban, Covid-19 measures Greece, Covid-19 measures tourism, COVID19, COVID19Gr, COVID19Greece, COVID_19, Greece, Greece tourism, Greek news, Greek tourism, Tourism, tourism and travel, tourism and travel Greece, Transavia, travel, US coronavirus travel ban, World Health Organization (WHO)
Air France has announced that as of Monday, March 23, several international services – even if considerably reduced -will be maintained to enable French and European nationals to return home.
“Air France teams are fully mobilized and are doing all they can to assist French and European nationals at this difficult time,” the airline said. For example, since the announcement of restrictions concerning Morocco, Air France and Transavia have already organized over 100 flights to bring citizens back home.
The carrier strongly encourages all its customers to plan their return trip without delay and to modify their booking directly at airfrance.com, where all the support measures are regularly updated.
The international flight schedule for the week of March 23, under the restrictions known on March 19, 2020, is as follows:
- Europe: Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Berlin, Dublin, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, Geneva, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Munich, Stockholm, Zurich,
- Africa: Abidjan, Conakry, Cotonou, Libreville, Kinshasa,
- North America: New York, Los Angeles, Montreal, Mexico City,
- South America: Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo,
- Asia: Tokyo.
The airline is currently looking into launching additional transport solutions at specific fares as quickly as possible. This notably concerns Portugal, the Maghreb, Senegal, Madagascar, Tahiti, Argentina, Cuba, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Jordan, Thailand, the Maldives or Vietnam.
Details about these flights and the booking procedure will be communicated at a later date.
This in situations like this that you can measure the value of the man and the level of the civilization.
The élite decide, the low class has to comply…..I am glad that I was not on that flight my wife being belgian would have been probably rejected. This does not surprise me, for example, I got married in France but my wife had so many difficulties to become French that we decided to abandon the procedure, also after our maire said in lougthing: I she was black she will be already french….
France discriminates against EU citizens: flights for French only.
My daughter is an Italian student studying at Cambridge. This week the advice from the university switched from “don’t go home because you might not be able to get back next term” to “there is no next term – go home”. With no other flights available, she was booked on the Ryanair flight from London Stansted to Nice this morning. From Nice she planned to take the train over the border to Italy.
She along with the other Italians was refused boarding however. Staff advised that France had decreed – apparently at 04.30 this morning – that only French citizens would be allowed entry to France. This of course is in direct contradiction to the assurances made by EU President Von der Leyen – after agreeing with Macron and Merkel – that EU travel restrictions would explicitly NOT apply to EU citizens trying to get home. I have yet to see any formal communication of this edict, but Ryanair staff were quite clear and the flight left with very few passengers on board, having turned away anyone who wasn’t French.
For Italians this is a slap in the face in their hour of need. Many Italian students (a great many on EU Erasmus programs) and travellers are desperately trying to return home as countries go into lockdown and universities close. Italy was the first to go into such lockdown but expressly did NOT stop flights and passengers arriving from other EU countries (because Shengen, solidarity, etc). However given the expected lack of demand, one by one all the airlines (Easyjet, Ryanair, BA, Lufthansa, Air France, KLM, etc) stopped flying to Italy. Only by bringing Alitalia out of (yet another) bankruptcy where any direct flights possible. The option of entering via Nice was even proposed by the Italian consulate in London yesterday and announced as the solution to the repatriation of Italian tourists stranded in Tenerife.
If confirmed then clearly this decision was made by Macron unilaterally, not even bothering to coordinate with Italy or presumably the rest of the EU.
This insult is added to the complete lack of compassion or support for Italy from the EU, whether Brussels bureaucrats & ECB or individual countries. Not a single EU country has offered any help. Let that sink in. Not. A. Single. Country.
This refusal contrasts sharply in the Italian’s eyes with the current extensive coverage on TV of the arrival of 9 Chinese medical experts with 31 tons of medical supplies.
This latest arrogant insult from Macron will not be forgotten.
Avalanches start with just one small additional drop of snow after a long, long accumulation of the same. I believe this will be seen as the final insult that leads to Italexit and the end of the EU.