Emirate Airlines, the national carrier of the United Arab Emirates has suspended its inbound and outbound flight operations to Nigeria indefinitely.
The airline said it suspended its operation due to its inability to repatriate over $85 million in revenue generated from sales of air tickets.
Few weeks ago, the central bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele while speaking during a meeting between the House of Representatives, International Air Transport Association (IATA) , Airlines Operators of Nigeria (AON) and representatives of the federal government said the apex bank is working to provide dollars for the airline to repatriate their money.
He said CBN had used its discretion to allocate $265 million to the foreign airlines, broken down into spot and forward. According to him, $110 million were done on the spot and the rest in 60days forward.
However, the airline said despite the promise by the CBN, nothing has been done.
The statement read: “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.
“However, Emirates has yet to receive an allocation of our blocked funds to be repatriated. Without the timely repatriation of the funds and a mechanism in place to ensure that future repatriation of Emirates’ funds do 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. This included the repatriation and receipt of at least 80 percent of our remaining blocked funds by the end of October 2022, in addition to providing a guaranteed mechanism to avoid future repatriation accumulation challenges and delays.
“Under these extraordinary circumstances Emirates had no option but to suspend flights to/from Nigeria from 29 October 2022 to mitigate against further losses moving forward.
“We hope to reach a mutual resolution with the Nigerian government around the repatriation of blocked funds to enable the resumption of operations and connectivity for travellers and businesses.”
