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Air Transat suspends operations as Canada imposes Caribbean flight ban
Air Transat is shutting down normal flight operations until 30 April after Canada imposed harsh new travel curbs.
The federal government is suspending all flights to Mexico and the Caribbean though April and all inbound travelers must quarantine for three days at a hotel on their own expense.
"Those with negative test results will then be able to quarantine at home under significantly increased surveillance and enforcement," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.
"With the challenges we currently face with Covid-19, both here at home and abroad, we all agree that now is just not the time to be flying," the PM said.
Air Transat will only operate special flights to repatriate Canadians.
"We are putting in place the measures requested by the Canadian government, including not travelling to the South. This forces us to temporarily suspend all our flights, including to Europe," said Jean-Marc Eustache, President and Chief Executive Officer of Transat.
"We will do everything we can to return our customers back to Canada. We obviously share the government’s objective to protect Canadians from Covid-19, including the new variants, and this is what all of our personnel have been doing in recent months."
It plans to operate dozens of flights over the next two weeks to fly Canadians home.
It said customers with scheduled return flights until 13 February will keep their original flight.
As a leisure airline, vacation flights south to the Caribbean and Mexico make up a high proportion of Air Transat’s schedules.
All other carriers including Air Canada, WestJet, and Sunwing have cancelled their services to all Caribbean destinations and Mexico.
Written by Ray Montgomery, US Editor
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TravelMole Editorial Team
Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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