On Monday, July 12th, Rwandair, the flag carrier of Rwanda, announced that it would be entering a partnership with Qatar Airways. This new deal will see the two airlines’ loyalty programs working together, a new collaboration that will allow customers of each airline to both earn and spend the points of their respective carrier’s program with the other.

“Our partnership with RwandAir opens up a world of possibilities for the customers of both airlines, allowing them to discover exciting destinations.” -H.E. Mr Akbar Al Baker, Chief Executive, Qatar Airways Group

Linking loyalty programs

With this week’s announcement, members of RwandAir Dream Miles and Qatar Airways Privilege Club will have access to each other’s destinations, with the opportunity to ‘earn and burn’ points across the carriers’ reciprocal route networks. It’s a fairly easy-to-understand concept, but here is how the partnership will benefit travelers:

RwandAir Dream Miles members will be able to fly to Qatar Airways destinations using miles earned by flights bought through RwandAir. With over 140 destinations on six continents, much of the world is now accessible with Dream Miles.

Qatar Airways Privilege Club members will have the ability to earn miles on RwandAir’s flights, both within Africa and on long-haul routes. The carrier’s higher-profile destinations include New York and London.

“Customer loyalty is of huge importance to both RwandAir and Qatar Airways. We both strive to put the customer experience first and give recognition to our most frequent fliers.” -Yvonne Makolo, CEO, RwandAir

Rwandair loyalists will benefit more

With this new ability, travelers loyal to Rwandair will have that same loyalty honored at Qatar Airways- a huge benefit with the latter airline’s significant global reach. Therefore, it’s fairly clear that travelers loyal to Rwandair (presumably mostly residents of Rwanda) will benefit the most from this deal.

Indeed, if someone living in Rwanda (primarily Kigali) chooses to travel to any destination in the Middle East, India, East Asia, or Oceania, Qatar Airways would now be the most obvious choice. The Qatari carrier makes long-haul travel simple with a single stop at its hub at Doha’s Hamad International Airport.

On the other side, travelers loyal to Qatar Airways may now find that Rwandair is their airline of choice when it comes to accessing East and West Sub-Saharan Africa.

Will loyalty status also be honored?

While it’s been made clear that members of each program can earn and spend miles on flights operated by the other airline, the mutual recognition of loyalty benefits was one function that was left out.

It’s standard these days to offer perks to your most frequent flyers. These often take the form of privileges and benefits at each membership tier and can include additional baggage allowance, lounge access, and priority boarding. With the two membership programs cooperating, it would have been fantastic if mutual recognition is an included feature- although status recognition tends to be more of a given when it comes to fully established airline alliances.

Source: Simple Flying

Denying individuals who have been vaccinated by Covishield the chance to travel to certain countries undermines the confidence in life saving vaccines, says the government of Kenya while responding to complaints by travellers that many European Union member had rejected both the negative test and proof of full vaccination.

Kenya’s Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe warned that distrusting vaccines that have already been shown to be safe and effective by the World Health Organization (WHO) risks putting billions of lives at risk.

Effect on uptake

“When you reject the visa application of those vaccinated by a certain vaccine type that is considered safe, are you telling them that the vaccine is unsafe?” Mr Kagwe said.

This, he said, will affect the uptake of the vaccine in the said countries.

His sentiments were followed by a statement from the Covax facility urging all global regional and national government authorities to recognise everyone who has received Covid-19 vaccines authorised by the WHO as fully vaccinated when making decisions on who is able to travel or attend events.

“Any measure that only allows people protected by a subset of WHO-approved vaccines to benefit from the re-opening of travel into and within that region would effectively create a two-tier system,” says the statement.

Though Covishield provides the expected defences against the virus, and is currently being administered in Kenya and most African countries, the EU Commission does not recognise it.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA), which is responsible for the evaluation and supervision of medicinal products, has approved only four Covid-19 vaccines so far: Comirnaty (Pfizer/BioNTech), Moderna, Vaxzervria (AstraZeneca), Janssen (Johnson & Johnson).

However, Covishield, the Indian version of AstraZeneca and University of Oxford’s Covid vaccine, is yet to be recognised by the agency though the WHO has endorsed it for emergency use across the world.

The European Union recently issued guidelines regarding the applicability of the EU Digital Covid Certificate “Green Pass” to different Covid-19 vaccines which would facilitate free and safe movement across all EU member states and associated countries.

The EU Digital Covid certificate or ‘Green Pass’ will be mandatory to travel to European countries and the document will serve as proof that a person is vaccinated against Covid-19.

The “Green Pass” came to effect on July 1 with an aim to facilitate free movement during the Covid-19 pandemic.

India has already asked the EU member countries to individually consider allowing Indians who have taken Covishield and Covaxin vaccines and want to travel to Europe.

Source: The East African

The heightened travel restrictions between Kenya and the UK in April led to a drop in international arrivals into the country, amid Covid-19 impact on the sector.

Pre-Covid, UK was the second overseas market source with 181,484 arrivals in 2019, a year that saw the country record the highest international numbers ever, at 2,048, 834, with the US being the lead market with 245,437 visitors.

The decision by the UK to place Kenya on its ‘Red List’ this year, over the lethal South African coronavirus variant, affected arrivals from the traditional market as tourists to Kenya remained low in the first six months of the year.

Tourism Research Institute (TRI) data released yesterday indicates Kenya recorded 305,635 international arrivals in the period between January and June 2021.

This is 262, 213 shy of the total arrival recorded in full year 2020 which the East African Business Council (EABC) has captured at 567,848, as Kenya led her regional peers in the number of international visitors.

During the six months reviewed by TRI, the US topped with 49,178 arrivals followed by Uganda and Tanzania which had 31,418 and 31,291 of its citizens visit Kenya, respectively.

China for the first time beat UK with a total of 18,069 arrivals as British visitors to Kenya totalled 16,264, a distant fourth among top five markets.

It was followed by India with 13,950 visitors, a period that visiting family and friends topped the reason of travel to Kenya (94,241 arrivals), as opposed to the traditional holidays to beach destinations and parks.

“We can see the UK dropped to number five due to the effects of the unfair travel restrictions and putting Kenya in the Red list despite our Covid-19 numbers giving a different scenario,” Tourism and Wildlife CS Najib Balala said in a statement yesterday.

When Kenya was red listed, the government retaliated by banning visitors from the UK with the two countries restricting flights from either end.

Kenya Airways, a key carrier on the route and other airlines were affected as UK banned Kenyans or anybody transiting through Kenyan airports from setting foot in the UK, save for residents who had to undergo mandatory quarantine at a government listed facility.

“We are still engaging and we hope these travel restrictions will be lifted not only by the UK but across the world. Meanwhile, we are still continuing to observe safe travel protocols, ” Balala said.

During the period under review, business and MICE(Meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) was the second most purpose of travel, which saw 92,828 visitors come into the country.

Holiday travellers came in third with a total of 87,629 arrivals while those on transit totalled 15, 811.

Other purposes were education(8,637), medical (3,592), religion (1,722) while 1,175 came into the country for sporting activities.

The six-month arrival is a paltry 14.9 per cent of the total 2, 048, 834 arrivals in 2019, the highest in the country’s history which saw earnings hit Sh163.56 billion.

It falls short of the 860,000 international visitors projected in the medium-term if the economy was to open in July last year.

The pandemic which has affected the global travel trends, hitting the tourism industry hard, saw Kenya lose Sh130.9 billion in potential revenues last year, as the government stared at a loss of up to Sh2.5 billion in catering levy alone.

Government data in collaboration with the Kenya Private Sector Alliance indicates at least 3.1 million jobs in the travel and tourism sector were hit four months after the first Covid-19 case was reported in Kenya, in March.

These include hotel employees, pubs and restaurants, tour operators, airlines, travel agents and their related suppliers and support services.

About 2.3 million employees were sent home on unpaid leave with most hotel temporarily closing.

The government has been counting on domestic tourists, mainly from Nairobi, to cushion the industry from collapse, as sector players hope for a strong post-Covid recovery in the wake of continued vaccination across the globe.

Domestic tourism accounted for 4.9 million bed-nights in 2019.

The numbers however remain low on the occasion of the on-and-off cessation of movement and the nation-wide curfew which has been in place since last year.

“The vaccine is expected to be a significant boost for the tourism and hospitality industry, which has been badly affected by border closures, travel restrictions, curfew and social distancing measures related to Covid-19,” notes Hasnain Noorani, PrideInn Group Managing Director.

Source: The Star

As the world starts to open up, a number of nations are actively contemplating allowing free travel to those who have received both shots of the vaccine. While that’s great for people in countries where the rollout has been a success, the inequality in the distribution of vaccine doses could leave some citizens shut out of such policies – most notably, Africans.

Less than 2% of Africa is fully vaccinated

The vaccination drive across the world has been celebrated as a huge success. In North America and Europe, around a third of the population is classed as fully vaccinated, having had both shots of a two-jab vaccine, or one of a single shot solution. But the situation elsewhere is not such a success.

Across the entire world, the fully vaccinated rate is less than 13%, with the average dragged down by lower rates in Asia and Oceania. However, the region with the very lowest rate is the continent of Africa, a region that is suffering from a lack of supply, despite efforts by airlines and governments alike to get doses where they’re needed.

Speaking at today’s CAPA Live event, Rwandair CEO Yvonne Manzi Makolo raised the issue of vaccine inequity, noting that,

“A lot of African countries have managed to contain the pandemic pretty well for the last almost year and a half now, including Rwanda where we operate from. But unfortunately, given the issue of vaccine inequity, a lot of African countries have not been able to get the number of vaccines that they have booked, including Rwanda. So we are seeing a situation where in the entire African continent, less than 2% of the population is vaccinated, which is very worrying.”

Statistics from Our World In Data show that, to July 13th, 2.9% of Africa’s population had received at least one dose of the vaccine. Fully vaccinated (double jabbed) sits at less than 1.4%.

Even though rates across Africa are generally very low, there is still some significant variation in the rates between countries. Some of the lowest rates, such as in the DRC, Chad, Burkina Faso, and South Sudan, less than 0.5% of the population have received a single vaccine dose.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), has spoken out recently about the vaccine inequity issue. He has branded the inequity a “catastrophic moral failure” that has led to a “two-track pandemic,” even going so far as to call it “vaccine apartheid.”

Citizens could be shut out with current travel policies

As the world looks to reopen for travel, some governments are eyeing policies that would see fully vaccinated travelers moving around freely. Those without the full quota of doses would be restricted in where they could go, and could face expensive quarantine and testing regimens if they are allowed to travel at all.

Speaking on behalf of aviation in Africa, Makolo was concerned that Africa citizens could face being shut out of international travel through no fault of their own. She said,

“This gives us a lot of concern in the aviation industry in terms of the full restart of the industry. A lot of the developed world, in the US and Europe and in other areas, have achieved much higher levels of vaccination and we are also hearing a lot of calls for requests to allow travel for people who are vaccinated. This is a concern for us, because if you have almost the entire African continent unvaccinated, how are people going to travel?”

The Rwandair CEO believes that restricting travel to the fully vaccinated only would be unfair to the citizens of Africa who have not had the opportunity to take the jab. For a continent that did a sterling job of containing the virus, with only 4.5 million total confirmed cases compared to 66 million-plus in North and South America as well as Europe, it seems a cruel and unusual punishment for their efforts to date.

Testing is the only way forward

For the African aviation industry, which has typically struggled with profitability anyway, getting back to a solid restart is vital for their survival. Makolo believes that the only way to restart travel fairly in the face of vaccine inequity is to afford the same travel privileges to those presenting with a negative COVID test result as to those who have had the benefit of the vaccine.

“From our side, we really want to see a situation where we still allow people to travel wherever they need to travel, as long as they have a negative COVID test. And the ones who are vaccinated can be allowed to travel freely. We have to allow for both.”

Rwandair is the first airline in Africa to begin trialing the IATA Travel Pass as a means of proving vaccination and test result status. The airline is also in talks with Common Pass and with the African Union to test out their offers of digital health certificates. Ultimately, it will choose the one that best suits its needs.

With digital passes possessing the ability to eliminate fraudulent test results, airlines in African can only hope these hold the key to unlocking international travel sooner rather than later.

Source: Simple Flying

Mastercard released Recovery Insights: Ready for Takeoff? – A view into key travel trends in the air and on the ground, around the world. While the global travel recovery remains uneven, a rebound in ground travel and pick-up in domestic flight bookings are showing encouraging signs.

The report, developed by the Mastercard Economics Institute, draws on aggregated and anonymized sales activity across the global Mastercard network to better understand the next phase for travel, its drivers and challenges. This includes the balance between leisure and business, local and long-distance, and saving and spending. The report also looks at the spending categories seeing an uptick and what they signal for travel recovery.

“There are indicators of recovery across some markets in the Middle East & Africa, for example gas spending in Nigeria and Egypt are already above 2019 peaks. Although we still have some way to go amidst ongoing uncertainty, there is an appetite among consumers to move and discover. Alongside safe, systematic opening of markets and continued momentum in vaccine rollouts, countries will start to see more signs of gradual travel recovery,” said David Mann, Chief Economist, Asia and MEA, Mastercard.

Key trends include:

Global gasoline spending is up 13%* from its previous peak in 2019. In Egypt and Nigeria, spend at gas stations are already higher than their 2019 peaks, while in the UAE and Kenya, they have equalized previous levels. Road trips—the big trend of 2020 around the world—aren’t going anywhere.

As people prepare to reemerge, pent-up savings help fuel sales across a variety of categories. Sales for beauty salons and luggage stores are up, likely reflecting plans to move around and increase in-person interactions. Spending at bike stores (+62%) also grew. Furthermore, sales at toupee and wigs stores have increased 75% in the past year compared to pre-pandemic, with increases in this category also seen among consumers in South Africa.

Air travel remains down significantly globally, although the trajectory is upwards. In markets like the UAE, Egypt, Nigeria, and Kenya, international flight bookings are climbing, but are still at a fraction of where they were before the pandemic began. This also holds true for South Africa, although domestic flights (56.7% share) are recovering at a quicker pace, above its 40.9% share in 2019.

Global business travel lags global leisure travel by approximately four months. In the Middle East & Africa though, there is a closer correlation to leisure and business travel growth.

Borders reopening have fueled 10 interesting travel corridors.  The limited borders reopening has proven to be challenging for travelers and the travel industry alike. But select open corridors are showing partial recovery. For example, flights out of the Middle East and Africa are gradually improving, with intra-regional travel to Egypt and the United Arab Emirates most notable.

“The past year has only reinforced how important travel is—to our connection with friends, family and the broader world, to our business communities, and to our personal fulfillment,” said Raj Seshadri, President of Data and Services, Mastercard. “The economic implications of tourism are vast, with virtually no industry untouched when travelers stay home. Through Recovery Insights, we’ve helped airlines redesign travel routes, retailers rejig inventory, and cities understand shifts in neighborhood spending. It’s about enabling smarter decisions for better outcomes—today and tomorrow.”

Mastercard launched Recovery Insights to help businesses and governments better manage the economic risks presented by COVID-19. Through this initiative, Mastercard has provided data-driven insights, analytics and other services to businesses and governments to help them understand ever-changing consumer spending trends and how to address them.

For instance, early last year, a leading Asia-Pacific airline leveraged Mastercard Test & Learn to understand what was driving performance during the pandemic. It was discovered that trip duration greater than seven days grew by nearly two-thirds, and tickets bought months in advance grew by roughly half. Building on these insights, the airline was able to instantly adjust their strategy in real-time to optimize their sales and better serve travelers.

Source: KBC

According to the International Air Transport Association, air travel demand is low compared to pre-pandemic levels. In fact, according to studies, it was 63 percent lower in May 2021. While the world is slowly reopening for travel, the World Health Organisation warms countries not to act in haste as that can have devastating results.

Britain reported more than 30000 cases for the first time since January on Wednesday, at a time when the government is looking to lower the restrictions. The country has said that it would provide genomic sequencing support to countries such as Brazil, Kenya, Nigeria, and Pakistan to help them identify the new variants. The world is currently worried about the contagious Delta variant, and France has reported that 40 percent of its COVID positive cases are Delta variants.

Portugal, on the other hand, has reported 3000 daily cases in the last 24 hours, while Coronavirus cases in Germany have increased after a decline for more than two months.

Closer home, Japan, the host of the Olympic Games, this year is expected to declare a state of emergency in Tokyo for 16 days before the Games begin. Indonesia is looking at a grim trend, as it reports 1000 deaths due to the virus for the first time. South Korea too has reported the second highest number of daily cases ever recorded.

Mexico reported the highest number of daily infections since February, while in the Middle East and Africa, Tunisia is struggling to contain the virus as it reports 8000 daily cases, and 119 deaths.

Source: TOI

Only a system as complicated as the European Union’s could help finance the COVAX facility to make sure the rest of the world has access to coronavirus vaccines, while potentially raising barriers to entry to Europe on the grounds that its regulatory agency doesn’t recognize these same vaccines. This is exactly what the EU has done with the Digital COVID Certificate.

Launched on July 1, the pass aims to ease travel within and (in theory) to Europe for EU citizens and residents who are fully vaccinated or have recovered from COVID-19.

Currently, this easy-to-use vaccination passport — designed to spare travelers cumbersome and expensive quarantines or multiple PCR tests — is valid only for recipients of one of the four vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA): Comirnaty (BioNTech-Pfizer), Janssen (Johnson & Johnson), Spikevax (Moderna) and Vaxzevria (Oxford-AstraZeneca).

Not included on this list of approved vaccines, however, is Covishield: the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine that was produced under license by the Serum Institute of India. As of July 2, the COVAX facility had distributed more than 95 million COVID-19 vaccines to 134 mainly low- and middle-income countries — the vast majority of them Covishield. Specifically, the India-made vaccine accounts for 96 percent of doses delivered in India and more than 90 percent of those given in Africa, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

The reason the Digital Green Certificate doesn’t recognize Covishield is that the vaccine does not currently carry market authorization within the EU, and its manufacturing site has not been assessed — both of which are required steps for the vaccine to receive EMA approval. The institute now states that it will submit a request for approval, but in the meantime, Covishield recipients are in limbo.

Were similar vaccine passports to become the norm for international travel, the Green Certificate could set a precedent that makes travel to Europe all but impossible for those who have been double vaccinated with Covishield.

The EMA does say that member countries are free to make their own decisions to accept travel certificates for vaccines that are not on its approved list. And under threat of reciprocal bans on entry to India for their nationals, 11 European countries have already signaled they will accept Covishield vaccinations as valid for travel. These include Austria, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Slovenia, Greece, Estonia and Spain, as well as Schengen zone members Switzerland and Iceland. However, individuals will only be able to travel to these individual countries, not within the EU.

In the long run, these rules could be an economic own goal for Europe, which needs people to move for business and tourism. More immediately, it exacerbates vaccine inequality between industrialized and developing countries and undermines the call of all those who mobilized for a new, equal partnership. Furthermore, the EU move may fuel wider resistance to vaccination in the developing world.

Denying Green Certificate eligibility to Covishield effectively creates two classes of vaccines. It also sets the EU in opposition to the World Health Organization (WHO), which has approved eight vaccines against COVID-19. The lack of EU recognition for identical AstraZeneca vaccines presents even more of a double standard, as WHO and the EMA use the same criteria and methodology to assess vaccine safety and efficacy.

The world needs more vaccines, and fast. COVAX is supposed to be the international mechanism to immunize the global population, using vaccines that meet WHO standards. There are huge international efforts underway to increase the number of sites around the world that can produce vaccines, and Africa is the top priority because of its large population and limited manufacturing capacity.

The EU proclaims solidarity through vaccine doses exported, funds donated to COVAX and a new €1 billion initiative announced in May to help develop vaccine production capacity and medical technology in Africa. But for developing countries struggling to contain the virus and experiencing the greatest hit to their economies, the Green Certificate exclusion adds insult to injury.

Europe has already earned a yellow card for undermining global efforts to control measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases through its failure to tackle vaccine reluctance. Now it risks a red as its actions raise fears about COVID vaccines’ efficacy and increase hesitancy in places where people don’t have the luxury of choosing which vaccine they get.

Europe says it wants to be a trusted partner for Africa, supporting efforts for strategic autonomy in medical supplies. But warm words ring hollow if the medical supplies funded by Europe result in discrimination and exclusion.

By not recognizing Covishield and other WHO-approved vaccines for the Digital Green Certificate, the EU is setting a precedent and shooting itself in the foot, both ethically and politically. If this bureaucratic blunder is not fixed fast, it will do lasting damage to Europe’s credibility in Africa and across the developing world.

Source: Politico

Delta Air Lines and Kenya Airways have inked a codeshare agreement that will enable both airlines to serve an extensive network while offering travel to a total of 39 cities across Africa, the U.S. and Canada.

With the new enhanced agreement, Delta customers flying nonstop on the airline’s services from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Accra, Ghana, will be able to connect with Delta-marketed codeshare flights to Monrovia, Liberia and Freetown, Sierra Leone flights served by Kenya Airways. Delta-marketed codeshare flights will also be available on Kenya Airways’ services from Nairobi to Cape Town, South Africa; Harare, Zimbabwe and Kigali, Rwanda.

On the other hand, Kenya Airways has placed its code on Delta’s services to Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport, offering customers increased access to the U.S. capital, as well as on flights to to Indianapolis, Indiana.

“Delta is the leading U.S. airline in Africa. Strengthening our partnership with Kenya Airways responds to customer demand for more travel choice between the continent and North America,” said Alain Bellemare, Delta’s E.V.P and President International. “These codeshare services will offer customers greater access to destinations in South, West and East Africa, rounding out Delta’s existing network of nonstop services to Accra, Dakar, Johannesburg and Lagos.”

Julius Thairu, Kenya Airways Chief Customer and Commercial Officer, added, “Kenya Airways and Delta Air Lines’ partnership remains central to our plans of offering the fastest connections to the Americas from our Nairobi hub and is in-line with our brand promise of enabling the sustainable development of Africa by providing access to different markets. In addition to Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport and Indianapolis, Indiana, other destinations we have within the codeshare are New York: Chicago O’Hare – Illinois, Denver – Colorado, Orlando – Florida, Miami – Florida, Raleigh Durham – North Carolina, Phoenix – Arizona, Charlotte – North Carolina.”

Delta will also make its return to South Africa with nonstop service between Atlanta and Johannesburg beginning August 1.

The airline will deploy its Airbus A350-900, marking the debut of one of Delta’s newest aircraft in its fleet between the U.S. and South Africa. The aircraft features the award-winning Delta One Suites and Delta Premium Select cabins, large seat-back entertainment screens and high-capacity overhead bins, among other enhancements.

With Delta’s partners operating across the continent, customers can make one-stop connections to 42 additional markets in 32 countries.

The airline currently operates nearly 20 weekly flights to its African markets, including daily service between Atlanta and Lagos as well as between JFK and Accra, and five-times-a-week service between JFK and Dakar. On July 8, Delta will resume four-times-weekly service to Lagos from JFK as well, with the airline restoring all its Pre-COVID African markets.

Source: Airline Geeks