About 130 passengers from various West African countries landed in Barbados on the first direct flight from Lagos, Nigeria, to Barbados aboard Ethiopian Airlines this morning.
The flight lasted eight hours with little turbulence.
Speaking to Loop on the runway in the shadow of the aircraft parked at Gate 10 at Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA), German-born captain Lars Mueller said the direct flight was non-stop.
He said:
“It was a direct and easy flight. The weather was good. We had some clouds in the Atlantic but otherwise it was a smooth and uncomplicated flight.”
Asked if he thought there should be a non-stop flight between the continent and the Caribbean, he said making that happen was beyond his remit. But from a pilot’s point of view, it is doable.
“This does not depend on me, it is a matter of two countries. I don’t know if there are enough people for a road for this…”
However, speaking to the captain’s cap, he claimed: “It’s not a problem at all. It’s easy – the flight to get here, the airport, the facilities are perfect, the weather is always good. No problem at all.”
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Noting the weather commentary, Mueller revealed that this is not his first time touching down on Barbados soil. But he was not in charge at the time. He revealed, “I was in Barbados 20 years ago on holiday and had a lovely holiday here.”
And with those memories, plus today’s successful flight, he said his boss would make the call on whether to repeat this trip in the future.
Ethiopian Airlines serves over 130 destinations around the globe. Mueller has been a pilot for more than 30 years.
The passengers who disembarked the flight at around 10:40am today, 31 August 2022, are in Barbados for the Africa Caribbean Trade and Investment Forum 2022 (ACTIF 2022) to be held at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Center (LESC) from 1 September to September 3, 2022. This inaugural forum is an initiative of the Government of Barbados and the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank). The leaders of the Forum are Invest Barbados and Export Barbados. The direct flight was also made possible through the efforts of Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc (BTMI).
