The United Arab Emirates (UAE) carrier, Emirates Airlines have announced the suspension of flights to Nigeria blaming the decision on the inability to repatriate its revenue from the Country as the cause.
This was disclosed in a statement by the airline, on Thursday.
The airline said it had no option but to suspend flights to and from Nigeria to mitigate further losses.
CEOAFRICA had reported that Emirates had suspended its flight on September 1 but reinstated it after the CBN announced the release of $260m to clear part of the outstanding funds now estimated to over $700m.
This flight suspension comes a week after the UAE authorities suspended visa issuance to Nigerians visiting Dubai, which has further reduced the load factors of airlines.
The statement read in part; “Emirates has continued to actively seek a solution for the repatriation of the remainder of its blocked funds in Nigeria. We were encouraged by the Central Bank of Nigeria’s efforts of reviewing our request, and considered that this critical issue would be swiftly resolved with the subsequent clearance of our remaining funds.’’
“Under these extraordinary circumstances, Emirates had no option but to suspend flights to/from Nigeria from October 29 2022 to mitigate against further losses moving forward”.