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Opinions of Monday, 5 December 2011

Columnist: Quaye, Stephen A.

Air Canada Direct Flight To Ghana Is Long Overdue

By: Stephen A. Quaye, Toronto-Canada



The smiles that Ghanaians living in Canada started to put on their faces following the hint that Air Canada, a major flight company in the country was to lunch a direct flight to Ghana is no more.

This is because the so called direct flight from Pearson International Airport to Kotoka International Airport supposes to be lunched by Air Canada to Ghana never took place.

When the rumour spread out, people started to gather their bags and luggages plan their Christmas holidays to be spent in Ghana as they went offices of traveling agencies to buy their tickets.

As they call at the traveling agents offices to buy the tickets they were told sorry it was rumour not real that Air Canada was going to fly direct to Ghana leaving disappointment of peoples faces.

Traveling from Canada to Ghana either for an annual vacation or whatever is so stressful that it needs patience for one to be able to accomplish this journey.

There is no direct flight from Canada to Ghana or vice versa therefore after having worked so hard or got exhausted over hard studies for the whole year and needs to travel to Ghana to rest and rejuvenate the body for another year becomes a very difficult decision to make.

Many are those who want to visit home every year and spend their annual vacation with their partners, family members, friends and love ones but when is due to embark on such journey, the frustrations one goes through whiles traveling to Ghana makes them put of such a nice idea.

Ghana is a beautiful country that is blessed with multi cultural activities as well as numerous festivals celebrated annually. At least, every single month there is a celebration of festival in Ghana that is worth partaking.

But to be able to get to Ghana one need to book a transit flight from Pearson International Airport to Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Atlanta or New York before continuing to Kotoka International Airport.

It is through this transit that many passengers either get their luggage’s missing, wait for six hours or sometimes eight hours before getting onboard another plane to Accra which causes a lot of frustration which never encourages one to embark on such journey another time.

It could be observed that when the rumour went round that Air Canada was going to fly direct to Ghana, other airlines like Lufthansa and KLM reduced their air fares drastically because the direct flight was going let them lose their market.

This is to point out clearly to all that if Air Canada was suppose to fly directly to Ghana; it would have created an open market competition that will cause reduction of air fares favourable to Ghanaians to visits home frequently.

Apart from going on vacation by Ghanaians who have stayed long in their foreign destinations, Ghana has rich tourist attractions that many who have heard about them will like to visit these places because of their historical evidence.

But tourists are discouraged from embarking on such journeys because there are no direct flights from Canada to Ghana and they are not prepared to suffer from any frustrations as far as transit flights may cause them.

Several tour operators who have shown interest in organizing tourists to visit Ghana’s attraction sites have long stayed off from going into such business because there is no direct flight from Canada to Ghana entertaining the fears that they will lose big time if they venture into such business.

Air Canada direct flight to Ghana is long overdue. No one is having the doubt that if the direct flight is launched it will be patronized by Ghanaians and even other Africans living in the country.

It will open more business for the tour operating agencies, business communities as there would be import and export services as well as easy traveling services for those holiday seekers as well.

Having put the proposal out there, it is time for our chiefs, opinion leaders as well as government officials to start negotiating for such better services for the people.

Ones again I challenge that Air Canada direct flight to Ghana is long overdue.

End.