Air Peace: If pilots are quarantined, who will fly items needed to save lives?

Air Peace has questioned the quarantine of its crew members who returned from China last week.

A 15-member medical team arrived from China on Wednesday, aboard an Air Peace aircraft.

Also on the aircraft were medical supplies and other equipment received from China, as part of efforts to support Nigeria in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

Commenting on the trip in a statement on Sunday, Toyin Olajide, chief operating officer of Air Peace, said on arrival at Beijing airport, none of the crew members disembarked from the aircraft.

She said the Chinese medical team boarded the aircraft “from the central door and stayed in the business class cabin before the take-off of the flight to Nigeria”.

Olajide said the crew members did not know that they would be quarantined on arrival, but when the aircraft landed in Abuja, the “concerned authorities” suggested it.

“While we kept to the directive of quarantining the crew members that conducted the flight, we are surprised that after we followed this protocol the crew members were still asked to be quarantined,” she said.

”Air Peace argued against it because it followed NCAA protocol in conducting the flight, so discussions on it was inconclusive when the flight headed to Lagos.

“ICAO’s intention with the protocol is to ensure that flight crew is not quarantined after their operation. Every day, flights are operated all over the world, moving medicals and other critical items.

“If you quarantine the pilots, who will be flying these items that are needed to save human lives under this COVID-19 pandemic?”

She said before the crew members arrived Beijing, they were tested for COVID-19 and each person tested negative.

Olajide added that the airline followed the NCAA protocol to ensure that the crew members were protected from any form of exposure to the virus on the trip.

She denied reports that some members of the crew ran away from quarantine on arrival in Lagos, as the airline learnt while the flight was on its way to Lagos, that Abuja directed the Lagos state government to quarantine the crew on arrival.

“While the engineers and the dispatcher went down to the foot of the aircraft to secure it, the Lagos State government’s health team took the pilots and the cabin crew to quarantine,” she said.

“Ignorant that they would be quarantined, the engineers and the dispatcher finished their work and went home, but later the Lagos State government contacted Air Peace and said that the engineers and the dispatcher ought to be quarantined. We called on them and they went to the quarantine facility where they have been ever since then.

“So, the report that indicated that members of our crew ran away from quarantine is not true. It is a report written in bad taste and it is not good because the crew did a heroic thing and need to be commended instead of being vilified.”

On March 28, 2020, NCAA had issued a circular to airlines and other stakeholders with ref: NCAA/DG/AIR/11/110 d, outlining the protocol in handling cargo and other essential flights during the period of this pandemic.

It had, among other directives, included that “Nigerian operators on any approved flight to any destination with over 1000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 shall ensure the provision of reinforced flight crew (two sets) for immediate return in accordance with relevant protocols.”

NCAA also directed that there should be no servicing of aircraft (catering, water, trash, etc), except refueling and this must be accomplished with flight crew on board.

Olajide said the airline kept to this protocol and instead of a two-flight crew, it went with three sets of flight crew.