Kenya has suspended all inbound and transit passenger flights from the United Arabs Emirates (UAE) to retaliate against a move by Dubai to ban all passenger flights from Kenya over fake Covid tests.
Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) Director-General Gilbert Kibe told The EastAfrican Tuesday that the suspension took effect Monday midnight for a period of seven days.
The ban does not however affect cargo flights that are normally flown by carriers such as Kenya Airways and Emirates airline from UEA into Kenya.
“Inbound and transit passenger flights from UAE are suspended for a period of seven days. We are doing this to reciprocate a ban on Kenyan passenger flights to UAE,” said Mr Kibe Tuesday.
The ban comes barely a few days after UAE extended Kenya flight ban after it established that travellers from Nairobi were testing positive for Covid-19 after arrival in the Middle East nation, despite carrying negative test results.
KCAA director-general Gilbert Kibe said the scheme involved a racket of private medical testing centres that colluded with travellers to issue fake Covid-19 PCR results to aid their travel to Dubai.
The East African