Two round-trip flights to Moscow (in business) vaccine included
The news has bounced from site to site over the past few hours and, if confirmed, would literally kick off the [...]
Lufthansa
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The news has bounced from site to site in recent hours and, if confirmed, would literally give the go for "vaccination tourism".
If in recent weeks there had been talk of tour operators ready to sell wealthy clients "vaccine included" packages to England and the United Arab Emirates, we are now at the real revolution.
Lufthansa, according to report bne IntelliNews e other industry blogs, would be ready to open a Corona Lounge in Moscow airport. The carrier would connect the Russian capital's airport initially with Frankfurt and later with the group's other hubs by offering passengers the opportunity to inoculate themselves with Sputnik V before returning home, without leaving the airport's sterile area and thus without the need to obtain a visa.
No 20-day stay in Dubai or India resulting in rising costs, two flights of just under 3 hours in a day, like the classic Rome-Milan.
If this news is confirmed-at the moment no confirmation or denial has come from Lufthansa-it would be the first countermeasure (including an economic one) that could help many airlines restart connections, as the initiative could soon be copied by other carriers as well.
Why Russia
The vaccine made by scientists in the former Soviet Union is used to date by more than 30 nations; in recent days the first doses have also arrived in San Marino. It is inexpensive, costs less than €10 per dose, and is easy to store.
While many nations are struggling to obtain doses to vaccinate residents, Russia in addition to vaccinating its own population is using Sputnik V as a propaganda machine. Here is how selling tens of thousands of doses every day to passengers from all over the world could help the coffers not only of Lufthansa but of the entire supply chain and of Aeroflot itself, which could copy the idea and fill planes with people interested in receiving their dose.
How the operation should work
Since entering Russia requires a visa, which is not easy to obtain, everything would take place inside the Moscow airport. By not leaving the sterile area (as is the case when catching a connecting flight on a second flight), passengers, upon landing in Moscow, would have to make their way to the lounge, where medical personnel would handle the injection.
Within less than two hours, passengers would then be ready to re-board their return flight. Obviously, this operation would have to be repeated twice in about three weeks at an approximate cost of €1,000.
In conclusion
The first to announce a similar strategy to attract visitors has been Cuba, although the intent is different. In the Russian case, it is not-as in the case of the Central American island-that a nation decides to "give away" the vaccine to tourists in order to jumpstart the travel industry, but an operation that is the result of a bilateral agreement between Russia (which produces the vaccine) and Germany (the company's key partner).
This is a scenario that may not please, since the vaccine is supposed to be a common good, free and available to all, but it was almost a given that alternative "solutions" would pop up sooner or later, of course it is peculiar that the Frankfurt/Moscow route is the one to break the ice. In any case, if it happens, it will certainly make a lot of noise.
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