Emirates Suspends Flights to Nigeria.

Emirates has for the second time this year suspended flights to Nigeria due to issues of repatriating funds from the country. Emirates had resumed flights to Nigeria after the Nigerian government had said it had availed some money to the airline. Three months later, flights have been cancelled again as Emirates says it is still unable to repatriate about $85 million that it is owed.

A statement released by Emirates Public Relations Manager, Rula Tadroson read: “Under these extraordinary circumstances, Emirates had no option but to suspend flights to/from Nigeria from 29 October 2022 to mitigate against further losses moving forward. Without the timely repatriation of the funds and a mechanism in place to ensure that future repatriation of Emirates’ funds do not accumulate in any way, the backlog will continue to grow, and we simply cannot meet our operational costs nor maintain the commercial viability of our operations in Nigeria.”

“We have officially communicated our position and attended multiple hearings with the Nigerian government, and we have made our proposed approach clear to alleviate this untenable situation, including a plan for the progressive release of our funds.” Some of the conditions that the airline mentioned were the repatriation and receipt of at least 80% of blocked funds and a guaranteed mechanism to avoid future challenges when repatriating funds.

Emirates was operating a total of eighteen (18) weekly flights to Nigeria from its hub in Dubai serving both Lagos and Abuja. According to The International Air Transport Association (IATA), foreign airlines have about $464 million stuck in Nigeria.