Emirates to resume flights to Nigeria before June — Minister

Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, SAN, has said Emirates Airlines was set to resume flight operations to Nigeria before June 2024.

The minister, who was a guest on Arise News Channel on Monday morning, confirmed that he had received a letter from Emirates Airlines on the return of the carrier.

He also clarified that the first announcement in October 2023 over the proposed resolution of the face-off between Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was not fake news but was only hasty.

According to him, “Emirates flight resumption is almost happening. I just received a letter from Emirates. The letter is on my phone now. They are ready to come back. They will announce the date because to restart a route, they have to get an aircraft for that route.

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“I am announcing to Nigerians for the first time; that I just received a letter from Emirates now. The letter is with me. I have a hard copy thanking us for all the efforts we made. Mr. President was the showman here. He was the one who pushed for it. He made my job easy because he went there, and had a diplomatic shuttle to resolve all the issues.

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“That was why I said the last announcement was hasty and not fake news. They will announce the date for their next flight. We have received a letter confirming that all the issues have been resolved and prepared to start coming back. It may be before June.”

It could be recalled that Emirates suspended flight operations to Nigeria in 2022 over its inability to repatriate its revenue in US dollars trapped in the country but the federal government, through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had released bulk of the trapped funds thereby paving the way for the return of the airlines.