Domestic airlines in the country are refunding money paid for tickets bought by prospective travellers because they are unable to fly due to the hazy harmattan weather.
Africa World Airline (AWA), one of the domestic airline operators, has so far refunded money to about 250 passengers who purchased tickets earlier.
This follows the inability of the airline to continue its operations as a result of poor visibility.
Meteorological Department has forecast severe harmattan weather till December 13, 2015.
The Chief Operations Officer of AWA, Mr Samuel Thompson, said in situations where flights were cancelled through no fault of the passenger or the airline, the passenger was either put on another flight or the money was refunded.
According to him, visibility required by airlines to fly safely to Tamale is 3,000 metres, while that of Kumasi is 1,600 metres and Accra is 800 metres.
“Now, since Wednesday, because of the harmattan, the visibility has dropped drastically. From Thursday to now, the visibility in Tamale was hovering around 1,000 metres. This is way below the minimum requirement,” he expanded.
Mr Thompson further said that since Thursday, the visibility in Kumasi had hovered between 200 and 1,000 metres, adding that as a safety precaution, when the visibility was low, the airlines were mandated to cancel flights.
Mr Thompson was worried that the situation was adversely affecting business, “because when the aircraft is grounded like this, we lose money.”
He was hopeful that the weather would normalise for business to resume, explaining that apart from the company losing money, the situation was also affecting the business activities of passengers.
He said this year’s harmattan weather had been serious because in the previous years, they had only had to cancel one or two flights a day and not all flights.
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