Estonia bans direct flights to Sweden, Norway again

Norwegian landscape.
Norwegian landscape. Source: Nico Franz/Pixabay

Estonia has banned direct flights to and from Sweden and Norway as COVID-19 rates in those two countries continue to rise. Direct flights to Sweden in particular have been non-existent through much of the coronavirus pandemic.

While there has been much talk in the media of raising the ceiling of cororonavirus rates, beyond which direct flights to a country are banned, higher than its present level of 25 per 100,000 inhabitants, the figure remains the standard.

Minister of Economic Affairs and Communications Taavi Aas (Center), whose ministry is responsible for setting the rate, recently said that it was outdated.

Be that as it may, the 25 per 100,000 rate remains in place and since Sweden's COVID-19 rate now exceeds it by some margin at 30.3 infections per 100,000 as of Friday, and Norway's also goes beyond the benchmark at 27.5 per 100,000, direct flights to and from those countries from Estonia is now off the table, with no exemption made.

Six destinations – Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Helsinki, London, Riga and Warsaw – have had exemptions applied to them, meaning direct flights from and to Tallinn can still go ahead regardless of the reported rate in the host countries.

The government at the end of August approved exemptions to flight restrictions for six destinations – Frankfurt, Helsinki, Copenhagen, London, Riga and Warsaw – flights to where can be operated from Tallinn regardless of the infection rates in the respective countries (which the limit it in two cases at present – Denmark and the U.K. – and are just below it in the case of Germany-ed.).

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Editor: Andrew Whyte

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