By Adedapo Adesanya
Emirates Airlines says it will resume services to Nigeria from October 1, 2024, operating a daily service between Lagos and Dubai.
In a statement on Thursday, the airline, with its hub in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), said flight services will be operated using a Boeing 777-300ER.
Emirates had in October 2022 suspended flights to Nigeria over its $85 million blocked revenue at the time.
In August, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said foreign airlines have not been unable to repatriate $464 million from Nigeria.
The then-Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele, subsequently promised to release $265 million to foreign airlines to offset part of the trapped funds.
“However, Emirates has yet to receive an allocation of our blocked funds to be repatriated,” Emirates said in a statement then.
“Without the timely repatriation of the funds and a mechanism in place to ensure that future repatriation of Emirates’ funds does 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.
Business Post is not sure if the backlogs have been cleared, but the airline will resume services to Nigeria from October operating a daily service between Lagos and Dubai.
Speaking on this, Mr Adnan Kazim, Emirates’ Deputy President and Chief Commercial Officer said, “We are excited to resume our services to Nigeria. The Lagos-Dubai service has traditionally been popular with customers in Nigeria and we hope to reconnect leisure and business travellers to Dubai and onwards to our network of over 140 destinations.
“We thank the Nigerian government for their partnership and support in re-establishing this route and we look forward to welcoming passengers back onboard.”
The statement added that with the resumption of daily passenger flights, the airline’s cargo arm, Emirates SkyCargo, will further bolster the trade relationship between Nigeria and the UAE by offering more than 300 tonnes of belly-hold cargo capacity, in and out of Lagos every week.