GABORONE, May 26 (Xinhua) -- Botswana's national airliner is expected to resume domestic flights next month, the minister of transport revealed on Tuesday.
Air Botswana ceased operations in March, as part of efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Thulaganyo Segokgo, the transport minister giving an update on national television said the airline will begin domestic operations in two weeks.
"Air Botswana is looking at commencing domestic flight service on the 12th of June," said Segokgo.
A latest transport and infrastructure report from Statistics Botswana, the national data authority, indicates that air passenger movements decreased in the last quarter of 2019.
"They went down by 17.1 percent after falling from 275,406 movements recorded in 3rd quarter of 2019 to 228,215 movements in 4th of 2019," said Burton Mguni, Statistician General.
According to the report, international air passenger movements accounted for 57.7 percent of total air passenger movements in 4th of 2019 while domestic air passenger movements constituted 42.3 percent.
"Most of the international air passenger movements were made at Sir Seretse Khama International Airport, they accounted for 74.4 percent of total international air passenger movements," said Mguni.
Movements in the airspace are also expected to take a huge drop in the first quarter of 2020, following the ban of passenger aircrafts movements due to COVID-19 pandemic. Enditem
