The first two charter flights carrying stranded US citizens home left on Thursday from Durban via Cape Town and from Johannesburg.

A third flight is expected to leave Cape Town on Friday, US embassy spokesperson Rob Mearkle said, adding that the three flights all bound for Washington DC would repatriate more than 900 Americans. 

They had been stuck in South Africa, along with thousands of other foreign travellers, by the sudden imposition on 26 March of travel restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

The US embassy avoided Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula’s strict ban on foreign aircrews entering South Africa by chartering Ethiopian Airlines aircraft for the repatriation flights. This meant that the crews only had to fly short incoming flights from Addis Ababa before leaving South Africa, and so avoided the international aviation rules that aircrews must sleep at least one night between long-haul flights. 

Mearkle said the US was grateful to Ethiopian Airlines and its crews for operating the flights.

“All passengers were screened for Covid-19 symptoms by South African health officials before boarding, and all airport, airline, and US Mission personnel followed all recommended protocols for personal protection and distancing throughout the repatriation operation,” he added.

“Once in the United States, all passengers will need to self-quarantine for 14 days.”

“The Department of State has no greater priority than the safety and security of US citizens overseas,” said US ambassador to South Africa Lana Marks. “We are rising to meet the historic challenge posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and, as of today, the department has repatriated over 52,000 citizens, on over 519 flights, from over 98 countries.

“We are so grateful to the Department of International Relations and Co-operation, the Department of Transport, and Airports Company South Africa for their support and excellent collaboration in facilitating the departure of the American citizens currently flying home.”

Marks told SABC that she herself had tested negative for the coronavirus after a brief scare when she went into self-isolation at the ambassadorial residence in Pretoria because she had attended a lunch which President Donald Trump hosted for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida in March. 

After their trip to the US, some members of Bolsonaro’s party fell ill with Covid-19 disease, raising fears it might have been transmitted to other people at the lunch. 

Other embassies have also been conducting repatriation flights for stranded citizens. The first Air France/KLM flight for French, Dutch and other European Union citizens left Cape Town on Wednesday and another was to leave Johannesburg on Thursday. The French embassy said two or three more flights were scheduled from both cities.

The first flight carrying stranded Britons home was due to depart Cape Town on Thursday with six more flights from Cape Town and Johannesburg to follow. 

Germany has mounted the biggest repatriation operation. It has already flown eight SAA charter flights from Johannesburg and Cape Town to Frankfurt and Munich and intends to fly several more. The SAA aircraft have also returned some stranded South Africans from Germany. An SAA flight chartered by Brazil which returned more than 200 stranded Brazilians to Sao Paulo on Monday, also returned with some South Africans.

A few hundred of the more than 2,300 South Africans abroad who have registered with the government, have already returned from Dubai, Doha, Sao Paulo and Germany. 

However, Darren Bergman, the DA MP who has been coordinating the efforts to bring home stranded South Africans from many different countries, expressed disappointment that the SA government did not better co-ordinate the repatriation flights for South Africans by helping to get small groups of stranded travellers to the few departure points in time to catch these flights.

On Thursday, Bergman also announced that the Home Away from Home campaign which he helped launch on 26 March — the day the lockdown began – would close its database of stranded South Africans on Friday 10 April at 5pm.

He said the campaign had succeeded in lobbying the SA government to relax travel restrictions to allow stranded South Africans to return. The campaign had registered 1,481 stranded South Africans who wanted to come home and had valid return tickets. 

But Bergman said when the government announced the reopening of airports the number of names on the campaign’s database had soared to 3,000. He said it would be hard to establish if all these people met the campaign’s criteria for being assisted to return. 

“It would be irresponsible of us to keep this list open for an undefined period of time, especially if the president announces a further lockdown.” 

Bergman stressed that the campaign would continue to help stranded South Africans where it could, but it wanted to focus on bringing home the original 1,481 people on its list. 

Canada is also believed to have arranged an SAA charter flight for stranded Canadians which will fly to London, leaving the passengers to find their own way home from there. DM