Decision to ban 34 countries flying directly, Kuwait lost 100 million KD revenue from expats

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KUWAIT CITY, Oct 31: When airlines were demanding to open Kuwait’s airspace with health control procedures, neighbouring Gulf countries opened up their airports and turned Corona economic crisis into a profitable one whereas Kuwait remained as a biggest losers due to the decision to keep the airports shut waiting for an COVID 19 vaccine to launch.

Among the decisions one of them was to prevent direct entry from 34 countries which were listed in the banned list. The passengers from banned countries had to spend 14 days into non banned countries and were allowed to enter Kuwait. Dubai and other countries benefited from thousands of passengers.

According to Abdul Rahman Al-Kharafi, a member of the Federation of Tourism and Travel Offices, the loss which Kuwait suffered due to this decision was around 100 million Kuwaiti Dinars.

Around 160,000 expats returned back to Kuwait, each passenger on average spent 600 dinars in Dubai. Al Kharafi added stating that this money could have been pumped into the aviation sector, hotels and restaurants in addition to the health sector by paying the cost of the swabs. Kuwait has suffered heavy losses for health decisions preventing direct entry of 34 banned countries directly into Kuwait.

Al-Kharafi stated that the revenue lost for the travel and tourism offices sector during the period from March 14 to July 31 amount to about 28 million dinars, while during the period from August 1 to the end of the year are expected to be about 17.5 million dinars, so that the total losses are about 45 million dinars, report al qabas. The Coronavirus pandemic has led to 30% of workers being laid off, while the costs incurred by the sector to cover expenses amounted to about 32 million dinars. Instead of continuing to run into losses why not benefit from them by allowing direct flights from 34 banned countries?

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