FlyDubai ditches Bujumbura

When several months ago a prediction was made here that airlines were, in the wake of growing violence in Burundi, reviewing their capacity on their routes to Bujumbura, regime sycophants were swift to accuse this correspondent of bias against the country and that such reports lacked foundation.

Since then did Brussels Airlines already shift one of their two weekly flights from Bujumbura to Brussels and the recent mass killings of people thought to oppose the regime by militias and security forces led to a brief suspension of all flights into Burundi by Kenya Airways and RwandAir.

Now, in another hammerblow to Burundi, has FlyDubai also indicated that effective 19th of January they will drop Bujumbura from their route network, following a complete collapse of inbound traffic.

‘You were right when you projected a very significant impact of the Visa regulations change a year ago. When Visa on arrival were abandoned and Visa in advance introduced, was the fate of Burundi’s tourism industry sealed. The move was obviously to keep people out of Burundi to prevent reporting by human right groups and journalists and the regime cared little that they were destroying tourism. Burundi’s tourism stakeholders had worked so hard to turn the industry around in 2014 and all investments went to waste in 2015. The growing violence over the illegal stay in office by Nkurunziza then just added to the downturn. Burundi is sliding into even more isolation now. If the regime already says they will treat African Union peace keepers as an occupying invasion force it is time to deal with them accordingly. These AU leaders will all start making noise again when the ICC [short for International Criminal Court] issues an arrest warrant for Nkurunziza over his crimes against humanity but at the same time they are failing the Burundian people to rescue them from an illegal regime and an unfolding genocide. I fear that other airlines will follow suit and may also leave Bujumbura because they run a business and right now who wants to fly to Burundi. International commerce and trade are bound to follow tourism into the grave’ commented a Rwanda based source who had worked hard to set up itineraries in 2014 to bring tourists to Burundi and had to write off their investment.

Regular aviation sources close to FlyDubai preferred not to make any further comments on the situation but a Nairobi based source did confirm that plans were underway to cut down on frequencies at this stage, though not a complete withdrawal as seen by FlyDubai.

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