Qatar Airways announced an extended 10-hour overnight curfew for their cabin crew staying in their accommodations of Doha, Qatar. The airline cites failure to comply with local health policies by some employees.
In normal times, cabin crew members of the Gulf airline are usually required to stay inside the Doha facility from 4AM to 7AM. That measure has now been extended by nine hours, meaning that the curfew is now active from 9PM until 7AM.
Additionally, the airline’s staff is asked to “refrain from participating in any gatherings or social events of any kind either within, or outside of, company accommodation whilst government-imposed COVID-19 precautionary measures are in place,” as stated in the internal email sent by Qatar’s senior vice president of cabin services, Saliya Karunanayake.
Qatar says the extended curfew is motivated by “several instances” of employees failing to comply with the governmental measures to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. Cabin crew members are far from ecstatic, with some questioning the effectiveness of the curfew in containing the spread of coronavirus.
Earlier this year, Qatar Airways announced it would ax more than 9,000 jobs, or a fifth of its workforce, in order to save costs amid the industry crisis caused by the pandemic.
To this day, Qatar has had 113,938 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 190 deaths.