Somalia airlines suspend local flights over lack of airport safety

The ongoing attacks from Al-Shabaab militants targeting government-controlled areas show an intent to target the aviation sector. The primary risk is to overflying aircraft at the lower flight levels in the airspace.

News Keydmedia Online
18 June 2022

MOGADISHU, Somalia – The airline companies in Somalia have announced that they will suspend all local flights from Tomorrow, June 19, citing security concerns.

In a statement obtained by KON, the airline operators association [AOA] said there is a lack of security at airports in the country, and accused the Civil Aviation Authority of incompetence and failure in its work.

The airline firm’s union said the suspension of the vital domestic flight services will remain halted until this problem is resolved. The ministry of aviation officials was unavailable for comment on the matter.

The shocking move came a plane carrying unspecified passengers who flew from Mogadishu, the Somali capital last week was “turned away” from an airport in the Gedo region for security reasons, KON sources said.

The security situation in Somalia is highly unstable as the weak AU troops-protected government has little control of the major cities, airports, and ports due to the divisions among Somalia’s stakeholders.

The ongoing attacks from Al-Shabaab militants targeting government-controlled areas show an intent to target the aviation sector. The primary risk is to overflying aircraft at the lower flight levels in the airspace.

 The US prohibited last year all flights across Somalia’s airspace below FL260.

Al-Shabaab has conducted multiple attacks against civil aviation, having shot down an IL-76 aircraft using MANPADS in March 2007 and conducted ground assaults against Mogadishu International Airport.

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