Ethiopian carrier, Ethiopia Airlines has chosen Test & Fly medical laboratory to carry out tests on traveler plying the Dubai route.
The directive commences on 11th December 2021. The airline has issued a notice to travelers about the development.
We have learnt that the airline decided to headhunt Test & Fly, after overwhelming incidents of people testing positive for COVID on arrival in Dubai most especially casual labourers traveling under labour companies, despite presenting negative results while boarding.
This was in additional to multiple fines paid by the airline to Dubai authorities because of the positive cases on arrival despite passengers presenting negative results and others clearly found with fake negative tests results at the health screening desk at the airport.
Dubai International Airport maintains a strict COVID testing protocol for passengers on arrival.
Ethiopian Airlines is one of the major carriers that ply the Entebbe – Dubai route, and requires passengers to present negative PCR results before departure. These tests are usually done 72 hours before the time of departure. Other airlines include; Uganda Airlines, Emirates and Fly Dubai.
As for Emirates, they attempted to address the problem of fake results by demanding that besides the 48hrs PCR test negative results, every passenger must also take a Rapid test (RDT) 6hrs before boarding the any Emirates flight to Dubai to make sure that no eventual COVID cases are transfered to the UAE.
Sources reveal that the increasing cases of positive cases on arrival prompted the airline to carry out a covert ‘investigation’ to address the issue.
Their findings, according to sources, showed that passengers were forging results. A good number of laboratories and medical facilities, carry out tests for travelers in Uganda but some wrong elements sell negative results for cases confirmed to be positive and others due to capacity issues get negative results from already positive cases.
Following this revelation, we are told, the airline settled for Test & Fly as the only lab accredited to carry out tests on passengers plying the Entebbe – Dubai route, effective 11th December 2021.