After a brief hiatus, Emirates Airlines has announced that it will resume its daily flights to Nigeria from October 1, 2024. The airline will operate a daily service between Lagos and Dubai.
The service will be operated using a Boeing 777-300ER, with flight EK783 departing Dubai at 0945 hours and arriving in Lagos at 1520 hours. The return flight, EK784, will leave Lagos at 1730 hours and arrive in Dubai at 0510 hours the next day.
This development comes after earlier reports by NewsNGR, of the airline’s planned resumption of flights to Nigeria. The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, announced that Emirates Airlines would resume flights to Nigeria shortly, with the precise commencement date to be revealed in the coming days.
The resumption of Emirates Airlines’ flights to Nigeria is expected to boost trade and tourism between the two countries. Nigeria and the UAE have built strong bilateral trade relations over the years, with Lagos being the nation’s commercial center. The airline’s cargo arm, Emirates SkyCargo, will also support Nigerian businesses by exporting their goods via its state-of-the-art hub in Dubai, into key markets such as the UAE, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Bahrain, among others.
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.”
With the resumption of flights, Emirates Airlines operates to 19 gateways in Africa with 157 flights per week from Dubai, with further reach to an additional 130 regional points in Africa through its codeshare and interline partnerships with South African Airways, Airlink, Royal Air Maroc, Tunis Air, among others.