Festus Keyamo, the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, declared that Emirates Airline would be resuming flights to Nigeria “shortly,” adding that the precise commencement date would be revealed in the coming days.
Keyamo met with Salem Saeed Al-Shamsi, the UAE ambassador to Nigeria, on Tuesday and provided this news on his official X (formerly Twitter) account on Wednesday.
The Minister stated that Ambassador Al-Shamsi presented a letter from Emirates Airline at this meeting, which confirmed the airline’s impending return to Nigeria and the impending announcement of the start date.
“Yesterday, I paid a working visit to the Ambassador of the UAE to Nigeria, His Excellency Salem Saeed Al-Shamsi, at the UAE Embassy in Abuja. He handed me a correspondence from Emirates Airlines indicating a definite date for their resumption of flights to Nigeria. That date will be formally announced by Emirates Airline in a matter of days,” Keyamo shared on Twitter.
The News Chronicles reported that Keyamo confirmed in a TV interview that Emirates Airlines is expected to resume flights to Nigeria by June 2024.
This comes after an agreement reached by President Bola Tinubu and the President of the United Arab Emirates during President Tinubu’s diplomatic visit to the UAE in October 2023. The agreement was to remove the visa requirement for Nigerians and resume air travel between the two countries.
Things To Note
Several airlines stopped offering cheap tickets on Nigerian routes and suspended flights to Nigeria in 2022 as a result of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s tardiness in answering requests from international airlines to repatriate funds.
In October 2022, Emirates Airlines ceased its operations in Nigeria due to the Central Bank’s failure to provide the promised foreign exchange allocation. A settlement to lift the visa ban on Nigerians and resume flights was reached with the President of the United Arab Emirates during President Bola Tinubu’s diplomatic visit to that country in October 2023, one year later.
The agreement was made, however Temitope Ajayi, President Tinubu’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, pointed out that the details still needed to be finalized for ratification and execution, meaning that flights would not immediately restart.
The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) established a committee in February to address the high cost of international flights in response to multiple foreign airlines discontinuing to sell inexpensive tickets on Nigerian routes.
The committee’s work, tasked with examining the variables impacting flight rates and coming up with ways to lower them, resulted in a noteworthy development.
Following the committee’s recommendations and the ensuing talks, the NCAA declared in March that the majority of foreign airlines had consented to reduce the cost of tickets for Nigerian passengers.
