euroAtlantic Airways (YU, Lisbon) has signed an agreement with the government of Guinea Bissau re-establishing direct flights between Bissau and Lisbon. The signing ceremony in Lisbon was attended by euroAtlantic president, Tomaz Metello, and the Secretary of State for Transport in Guinea-Bissau, João Bernardo Vieira.
The ACMI specialist said in a statement that once weekly flights will commence on November 14 with frequencies to increase depending on demand. The carrier operates a similar contract for and on behalf of STP Airways (8F, São Tome), the national carrier of São Tomé and Príncipe, in which euroAtlantic also is a shareholder.
The route's sole operator until now, TAP Portugal (Lisbon), suspended flights in December last year following an incident in which a TAP flight to Lisbon was forced by authorities in Bissau to depart with 74 Syrians aboard, all of whom had forged documents.
Flights were to have resumed on October 28 only to be postponed when Portuguese authorities raised concerns about security measures in place at Bissau's Osvaldo Vieira International Airport.
In a bid to resume the flights, Guinea-Bissau sought to allocate its traffic rights to Romania's Ten Airways (Bucharest Baneasa) in July this year only for the Portuguese civil aviation authority (Instituto Nacional de Aviação Civil - INAC) to reject the move on grounds it violated the terms of Portugal's then Bilateral Air Services Agreement with Guinea Bissau.
