TAP suspends flights to Italy for a fortnight
The Portuguese company suspend all flights between Portuguese and Italian airports from Wednesday to March 24th.
Portugal’s flag-carrier TAP has decided to suspend all flights between Portuguese and Italian airports from Wednesday to March 24th, the airline’s official source told Lusa.
“In compliance with the Portuguese government’s decision to suspend all flights to and from Italy, TAP reports that its entire operation between Portuguese and Italian airports is suspended from March 11st until March 24th,” the same source added.
The government decided today to suspend flights to all regions of Italy for 14 days, from Wednesday, in view of the development of Covid-19 and the decision of Giuseppe Conte’s executive to quarantine the country.
In a statement released today, the Portuguese government clarified that on Monday it issued an order to suspend from 3 pm today “all flights of all airlines, commercial or private, to or from the regions of Italy affected by the epidemic, to or from Portuguese airports or aerodromes” for 14 days.
However, in view of the monitoring of the epidemic and Italy’s decision to quarantine the whole country, it was decided to extend this measure, “with a new order to extend this suspension to all regions of Italy from 00:00 on March 11 and for the same period of 14 days (March 24th)”.
The decrees in question do not apply to State aircraft, flights for the exclusive transport of cargo and mail or of a humanitarian or medical emergency nature, as well as technical stopovers for non-commercial purposes.
The Covid-19 epidemic was detected in December in China and has already caused more than 4,000 deaths and about 114,000 people infected in about a hundred countries.
In recent days, Italy has become the most serious case of an epidemic outside China, with 463 deaths and more than 9,100 contaminated by the new coronavirus, which can cause respiratory infections like pneumonia.
