The FINANCIAL — Today, on 3rd of August, German Airline Lufthansa, resumed regular flights from Tbilisi, Georgia to Germany. During the first regular flight to Munich, all passengers were given TAV branded masks from the airport staff. Flights will be performed twice a week. Technical negotiations have been successfully completed with Air France and airBaltic and commercial flights will be resumed in the upcoming days.
German airline Lufthansa has resumed regular flights to Georgia. 188 passengers have already flown from Munich to Tbilisi, and 156 passengers from Tbilisi to Munich. Passengers arriving at the airport were given branded face masks. Regular flights will be performed on Airbus A319 type aircraft. Flight schedule will be as follows: Munich – Tbilisi – twice a week, every Thursday and Sunday; Tbilisi – Munich – twice a week, every Monday and Friday, as reported by Georgian Public Broadcasting.
Since Georgia’s inclusion on the list of safe countries, and the issuance of the recommendation on the possible reopening of borders to these countries, the Georgian Government has been engaged in active bilateral negotiations with several EU member states Agreements on the unconditional bilateral reopening of borders have already been achieved with Germany, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia. The German Embassy in Georgia welcomed the Georgian government’s decision: ” We welcome the decision of the Georgian government to lift the entry restrictions for Germany. We hope that this is the beginning of normalizing travel with all EU member states. This is a priority of the German EU Council Presidency”, The embassy said in a Facebook post.
Technical negotiations have been successfully completed between airBaltic and Georgian Civil Aviation Agency. Scheduled flights between capital cities of Georgia and Latvia will resume on August 5. Primarily, flights will be carried out once a week, while from August 20, flight frequency is planned to increase to two flights per week. Also, Regular flights between capitals of Georgia and France will resume from August 8. Regular flights will be performed on A320 and A321 type aircrafts 2 times a week, according to Georgian Civil Aviation Agency.
On 16 March 2020, the Commission adopted a communication recommending a temporary restriction of all non-essential travel from third countries into the EU. On 30 June the Council adopted a recommendation on the gradual lifting of the temporary restrictions on non-essential travel into the EU, including an initial list of countries for which member states should start lifting the travel restrictions at the external borders.
On July 31st, following a review under the recommendation on the gradual lifting of the temporary restrictions on non-essential travel into the EU, the Council updated the list of countries for which travel restrictions should be lifted. As stipulated in the Council recommendation, this list will continue to be reviewed regularly and, as the case may be, updated. Georgia’s still on the updated list, while Algeria has been dropped after removing Serbia and Montenegro 2 weeks ago. Read more.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has put Georgia on a list of red-zone countries in terms of coronavirus. The Ukrainian government divided countries into the red and green zones. The lists rely on two indicators: the number of patients per 100,000 people and the increase in new patients. As of July 31, the red-zone countries are the following: Georgia, Hungary, China, Germany, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Albania, Montenegro, Poland, France, Russia, etc. These nationals will have to obtain COVID-19 test result or will face a mandatory 14-day quarantine, Georgian Public Broadcasting wrote.
Last month, Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air shared the news of launching 6 new routes to and from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. One of the new destinations is Kutaisi, Georgia. Flights will start on October 1st. Airline expresses its readiness to carry out flights between Georgia and other countries as soon as regular commercial flights are resumed.
Discussion about this post