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By Chinelo Obogo
Emirates has signaled its intentions to resume flights to Nigeria in June this year, which ends a two-year hiatus as a result of difficulties in repatriating its revenue.
Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo, revealed Emirates’ intentions to resume flights during a recent interview on Arise Television.
The Minister’s comments were bolstered by the revelation that he had recently received a letter from Emirates directly. He also clarified that a previous announcement made in October 2023 regarding a resolution between Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was made hastily.
“Emirates flight resumption is almost happening. I just received a letter from them. 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.
“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.
“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,” Keyamo said.
On the repatriation of funds, the Minister said there were two sets of funds that were trapped but that 100 percent of the funds trapped by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have been cleared.
“There were two sets of funds that were trapped. Some people got it confused when they said it was fake news. They said they have cleared it, others said they have not been cleared. They were the funds that were trapped by the CBN. That’s the ones they called the forward sales that they bid for but the CBN could not meet its obligation. CBN accepted the bid but they couldn’t provide the funds for it. It amounted to about $160 million. That is the government’s own obligation. We have cleared it.
“The other ones are for the commercial banks. When they sell their tickets, their funds are trapped in commercial banks, the commercial bank cannot raise the FX to fund and transfer to them. That is not government’s responsibility but that of the commercial banks to do something to raise those funds and transfer. That is where the confusion came in but government’s own responsibility regarding the central bank has been done. They have cleared 100% of all the trapped funds,” he said.
Emirates was forced to suspend flight operations in October 2022 over challenges in repatriating a substantial amount of its revenue, estimated at $85 billion, from Nigeria. The suspension caused disruption for travelers seeking direct connections between both countries but in September 2023, a meeting between President Bola Tinubu and United Arab Emirates President, Mohamed bin Zayed, signaled a resolution to the dispute.
