Air New Zealand is expecting more cases of Omicron among its crews, with others now showing symptoms, its CEO Greg Foran says.
The national airliner announced yesterday it had stood down 15 aircrew members as close contacts of an employee who had tested positive for the Covid-19 variant.
In a statement, Air New Zealand says it has significant precautions in place for crew set out by the Ministry of Health and the airline's medical team, including wearing PPE and regular surveillance testing.
However, Foran told Morning Report he is now aware of other crew members showing symptoms of the virus and that he expectd more cases to be confirmed.
He says the company is doing all it could to stay operating, but that it will need help doing so going forward.
"Over yesterday, we were dealing with the fact that not only this crew member had obviously picked up Omicron, but we've taken the precaution of standing down a number of pilots and other crew," he said.
"I understand that a couple of the other crew are showing symptoms at this stage.
"This will move quite quickly and we do anticipate we'll be dealing with quite a few more cases."
More to come...
2 comments
Lockdown
Posted on 24-01-2022 09:07 | By Slim Shady
I will be surprised if the 14 day and 10 day nonsense will even last that long! How about no isolation at all and get on with it? Just an idea.
Sad, but hardly unexpected.
Posted on 24-01-2022 12:09 | By morepork
Condolences to the aircrews. If it were down to me, I'd ground all international flights for 3 weeks. Close our borders and work on getting the virus in all its variants under control. The fact is that the testing of passengers and crew is woefully inadequate and we see cases arriving here almost every day, even though the flights are supposed to be checked. We simply don't have adequate protection with vaccines and testing. Until that changes, we should limit flights to freight only, which can be adequately de-contaminated. Covid has turned travel into a privilege, not a right. You earn that right by being able to properly protect aircrew, passengers, and the population of our country.
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