In times of need WFP ensures flight connection between Europe and Africa
It’s 5 in the morning in Rome, Italy. The sun’s upper edge touches the horizon illuminating the blue sky with a bronzed orange light that reveals the start of a new day. Overhead, planes line up, heading towards Fiumicino Airport to land one by one, while an Airbus 330–200 stands on the ramp warming up the engines before take-off. This a United Nations World Food Programme humanitarian flight to Accra, Ghana.
During the COVID-19 outbreak and while the pandemic continues to cause severe interruptions to commercial air transport, the World Food Programme Global Air Passenger Service ensures diplomats and humanitarians from UN agencies and NGOs can reach the destinations in the world where they are most needed. So far, the service has operated over 1,300 flights transporting more than 20,000 humanitarian passengers to 60 different destinations in the world.
On March 22, 2020, due to the coronavirus outbreak, passenger traffic at European airports decreased by 88 percent compared to the same day in 2019. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), although the European air transport sector has seen an increase in the number of flights in recent months, figures are still dramatically lower compared to the same period last year. This has negatively impacted the global humanitarian assistance landscape, with thousands of humanitarian workers facing challenges traveling to their duty stations or returning home to their families. The opening of an air link between Europe and Africa was of paramount importance.
Through the successful collaboration between the Italian Government and WFP, humanitarian passengers could avail, between July and August, WFP’s bi-weekly flight services operated by Alitalia between Rome and Accra.
Let’s see how the vital air transport connection has changed the professional and personal lives of some of the humanitarians on board one of these flights:
“I am a logistician based in Abuja, Nigeria, and I remained stuck there for over eight months while my hometown in the North of Italy was facing hell.” Said a passenger from an international humanitarian medical NGO during the flight. Due to coronavirus Italy was gripped by a countrywide lockdown from March to May overwhelmed by rocketing numbers of cases and deaths mainly concentrated in the northern regions. Through the connection Rome-Accra-Rome provided by WFP, he was able to reunite with his family while ensuring continued humanitarian support in Nigeria, where he contributed to the distribution of essential medical cargo across the country.
“I am a Programme Officer from WFP, serving in the Rome Headquarters. The organization urgently needs me now to fill a vacant position in Mali. Thanks to this flight, I am finally able to reach my colleagues in Bamako and start my new assignment.” WFP staff continuously move to different countries of operation, including emergency duty stations, and between the headquarters in Rome and field locations, to provide life-saving assistance in crisis-affected areas. WFP flights are essential to ensure that the staff rotation chain remains intact, despite the challenges caused by COVID-19 travel restrictions.
“I am an immigration official at the Embassy of Italy in Accra. The opening of the WFP route Rome-Accra-Rome has given me hope in the most difficult time of my life. Thanks to this flight, I could travel home more than once and be close to my family after the tragic loss of my mother. In my role at the Embassy, I help many citizens to obtain visas, especially in these challenging times, and I now need to go back to work.” Nine percent of WFP’s passengers are diplomats. Their roles overseas are crucial to protect their home country’s citizens and help shape foreign policy. “I am a citizen of the United States working for the American Embassy in Ghana. WFP’s air passenger service was the only option for me and my family to return to the United States.”
“I am a Timor-Leste national, working for an NGO in Ghana. I moved to Accra in February to begin my new assignment. My wife was supposed to follow me there after a couple of months. However, due to COVID-19, we have been separated for over six months. Now I can finally meet her again thanks to WFP’s flight from Accra to Rome and further WFP’s connection between Kuala-Lumpur and Dili.” Separation from partners is one of the costs that many humanitarians had to pay during coronavirus. However, this, along with many other WFP flights, ensured a happy ending.
With the resumption of commercial passenger flights and airlines slowly rebuilding their operations worldwide, WFP has started to suspend some of the routes served during the past few months, including the route Rome-Accra-Rome and some other destinations in West, East Africa and the Middle East.
Currently, the service keeps collaborating with some other commercial airlines including Ethiopian Airlines, South African Airways, Air Arabia, Air Asia, Copa Airlines, among others, to provide vital connectivity to over a thousand passengers each week in dire need of reaching destinations in Asia and the Pacific, East, West, Central and South Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa.
Story by Eleonora Ponti, WFP Aviation Services
