An Internet photo of one of Rwanda Air’s planes

Rwandan airports on Saturday reopened to international travellers, more than four months after the East African nation suspended commercial passenger flights to mitigate the Covid-19 outbreak.

The suspension didn’t affect cargo and emergency flights. Tourists travelling by charter flights had been allowed to enter the country that is famous for mountain gorilla tracking since June 17.

Rwandan national flag carrier RwandAir, which flew to 29 destinations across 24 countries throughout Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia before it suspended passenger flights on March 20, on Saturday resumed with a flight from Kigali International Airport to Dubai, while Kenyan and Ethiopian Airways made flights to Kigali, Rwandan Minister of Infrastructure Claver Gatete said.

Gatete reiterated that to ensure the safety of passengers, all travellers are required to adhere to the health guidelines issued by the ministry of health.

The airline has been “greatly impacted” by the pandemic, which in April said it had resolved to reduce employees’ salaries as part of measures to reduce expenditure. It will restart services with selected African routes where travel restrictions have been eased and borders have reopened, and with one long-haul route to Dubai, while other routes will gradually resume.

The company’s CEO Yvonne Makolo told reporters earlier on Friday that airline will ensure social distancing measures during boarding, deeply clean the planes after each flight, and enforce the policy that every passenger is only allowed to take one piece of cabin luggage on board to avoid congestion and too many physical contacts between passengers and luggage.