The 158 passengers on flight SK4700 between Nice, France, and Oslo, Norway, will have to isolate for ten days after losing a race against time. One minute before their arrival, Norwegian authorities marked France as a “red zone”.
The flight SK4700 from Nice Cote d’Azur Airport (NCE) to Oslo Gardermoen Airport (OSL) was supposed to arrive at 0h10. But pilots did everything they could to avoid self-isolation and the Boeing 737, registration LN-RGG, managed to land nine minutes early. Passengers even applauded the flight crew when they were told they landed at midnight, according to local media.
Sadly for them, their efforts were in fact vain, as the plane landed one minute too late. “The change to the red zone was from midnight included, so midnight exactly or one minute past midnight, hence these passengers must go into quarantine“, explained Elisabeth Johansen of the Norwegian Ministry of Health to Agence France Presse.
Norway announced on August 6, 2020, that France, Switzerland, Monaco, and the Czech Republic would be put back into the “red zone” after they crossed the threshold of 20 new cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 inhabitants over the last 14 days. Passengers coming from those countries are required to submit to ten days of quarantine.