British Airways has agreed to re-evaluate its decision to stop its flight to Sierra Leone after a plea by the actor Idriss Elba.
The Hollywood star made the disclosure via a tweet on Friday, following discussions he had with top officials of the British owned airline, including its CEO.
“British Airways CEO invited my office and I to have a frank conversation in the spirit of optimism. It was very constructive. They have decided to re-evaluate the viability of the route and the regions,” Elba twitted Friday afternoon.
British Airways announced the suspension of its flights to Sierra Leone and neighboring Liberian in 2014, about two years after it launched its Freetown route. The airline back then cited concerns about the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic.
After Ebola was declared over, calls for the airline to return by Sierra Leoneans were met with deaf ears. An online petition was even launched in this effort.
Elba sparked the discussion earlier this week with a single tweet in which he posted an image of a popular beach in Freetown on Monday, in which he invited the airline to reconsider resuming flight to the country.
The tweet showed the iconic Number 2 Beach, which is located in the Western Area Peninsular, outside the capital city.
The actor said he was first engaged by the Corporate Officer of the airline via a telephone call, following his first tweet.
“It was a brief chat about the history with Sierra Leone and a promise to examine what the future could hold,” the actor later twitted, adding: “There are many factors to reconsider but they were at least engaged.”
Elba, who was born in the UK to a Sierra Leonean father and a Ghanaian mother, visited Sierra Leone in 2019 for the first time. He was declared a Brand Ambassador for the country by President Julius Maada Bio. The actor whose father hail from Bonthe, the same district in the south of the country as the president, promised to use his influence to sell the country’s investment potentials internationally.
The ‘Avengers’ star who has acted in over a dozen films also expressed interest to invest in developing tourism and boost the entertainment industry in the country.
Elba is one of the biggest names in Hollywood, where he has acted in several blockbusters, notably his lead role in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, the movie about the late former South African freedom fighter. He has also starred in a Netflix movie about child soldiers, Beasts of No Nation, which was filmed in Ghana.
In 2016, Elba was named in the Time 100 list of the Most Influential People in the World.
His campaign to get British Airways return to Sierra Leone has been praised by Sierra Leoneans on social media.
