The CEO of Imam Khomeini International Airport City Company Mohammad Mahdi Karbalaei announced a 91-percent drop in flights and 97-percent drop in passenger traffic in April compared to same period last year, Trend reports citing Official Website of Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade.
Karbalaei said the decrease led to the company's revenues declining by 88 percent.
“In March of 2019, the number of flights decreased by 70 percent compared to March of 2018. Also, in the same period, we had a 77-percent decrease in the number of passengers and a 60-percent decrease in revenues,” Karbalaei said.
He went on to say that about 5,000 people are directly and indirectly employed in the Airport City, 3,000 of them have jobs related to airport services.
“There is a risk that about 3,000 people will lose their jobs if the current situation with coronavirus continues," he said.
He mentioned that the measures were taken to prevent the spread of coronavirus, including the establishment of National Committee on Combating CoronaVirus, implementation of social distancing plan with the aim of cutting off the virus spread, focusing the entry and exit of passengers from one terminal in order to exercise more supervision and control, and allocation of resources and credits for the supply of health items.
Karbalaei also referred to other implemented measures, such as: screening of all incoming and outgoing passengers, implementation of the protocol of the Ministry of Health for passengers enter into the country from countries such as China, Italy, USA, Spain , UK and Germany, deployment of intelligent passenger and cargo disinfection in cooperation with knowledge-based companies, disinfection of all aircrafts.
The outbreak of the coronavirus began in the Chinese city of Wuhan (an international transport hub), at a fish market in late December 2019.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11. Some sources claim the coronavirus outbreak started as early as November 2019.
Iran is one of the countries heavily affected by the rapidly-spreading coronavirus. According to recent reports from the Iranian officials, over 85,900 people have been infected, 5,391 people have already died. Meanwhile, over 63,100 have reportedly recovered from the disease.
The country continues to apply strict measures to contain the further spread. Reportedly, the disease was brought to Iran by a businessman from Iran's Qom city, who went on a business trip to China, despite official warnings. The man died later from the disease.
The Islamic Republic only announced its first infections and deaths from the coronavirus on Feb. 19.
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