Senegal Re-opens Airspace To Guinea After Aviation Spat

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Senegal Re-opens Airspace To Guinea After Aviation Spat

Thursday, 03 November 2011 00:03

Senegal Airline

(AFP) – Senegal re-opened its airspace to Guinea on Wednesday a day after a spat over payments led the country to block all flights coming from or going to Guinea, Senegal Airlines said.
"Senegal Airlines has the pleasure of announcing the resumption of commercial flights to Conakry," read a statement from the airline.
On Tuesday Dakar closed off its airspace to planes to and from Guinea to protest the seizure of one of Senegal Airlines' planes which was en route to Abidjan via Conakry.

Senegal Airline (Photo AFP)

"This extremely serious measure was taken under the false pretext of the payment of royalties allegedly owed by the defunct Air Senegal International, which was managed by Royal Air Maroc," Senegal's transport ministry said Tuesday.
A source at Senegal Airlines said the plane in questioned had returned on Tuesday night and authorities had sorted out the dispute, without giving details.
Guinea's Civil Aviation chief Diante Keita played down the problem saying there was "no crisis between the two countries."
He said when Air Senegal International went bankrupt, the company owed $140,000 (100,000 euro) to the organisation which controls the airspace between Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, which should have been paid by October 31.
"We only wanted to recuperate funds owed to us by the Senegalese company," said Keita.
Senegal Airlines, owned by the state and private Senegalese interests, began commercial flights in late January, over 18 months after the collapse of Air Senegal International (ASI), which belonged to Senegal and Royal Air Maroc.