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Challenges In Aviation Sector Will Be Over Soon, Minister Assures Foreign Airlines

Nigeria’s Ministry of Aviation is asking foreign airlines in the process of downgrading or suspending their operations to reconsider their plans and decisions. The Ministry is … Continue reading Challenges In Aviation Sector Will Be Over Soon, Minister Assures Foreign Airlines


planeNigeria’s Ministry of Aviation is asking foreign airlines in the process of downgrading or suspending their operations to reconsider their plans and decisions.

The Ministry is assuring them that the challenges currently besetting the industry and other sectors would soon become things of the past.

The Minister of State for Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, made the appeal on Wednesday when he received the West African Regional Manager for Emirates Airlines, Manoj Gopi Nair, in his office.

According to the Minister, the government was not unaware of the issues that have created operational difficulties for both domestic and foreign airlines, such as Foreign Exchange, Aviation fuel and infrastructural deficiencies.

Senator Sirika said that the government had been up and doing to ensure the creation of an environment that is both enabling and profitable for them to operate.

Complaints About Foreign Exchange

He pointed out that the recent concession given to airlines by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to enable the airlines procure the required Foreign Exchange to clear the backlog of matured Foreign Exchange obligations was a direct fall-out of efforts of the Ministry to minimise the identified challenges.

The Minister further promised to immediately take up the Emirates complaints about Foreign Exchange with the relevant authorities.

On the issue of aviation fuel which had earlier threatened to cripple the industry in the recent past, Sirika said that the situation had almost normalised, as a result of government intervention that has made it easier for importers to bring in the product.

On infrastructural deficiencies, especially the runway at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, the Minister told the airline operators that the government was already handling the issue, emphasising that a long-term solution remained in the concession of the major airports for which government had already commenced the process. That, he said, would address the problems of infrastructure at the airports.

He therefore appealed to the Management of Emirates and other airlines to reconsider their decisions to either suspend their operations or scale them down, considering the adverse effects on their long-standing costumers and the benefits they had reaped in the past.

The Regional Manager, West Africa, of Emirates, Manoj Gopi Nair had earlier told the Minister that he was in his office to brief him on the decision of the Emirates Management to scale down its operations in Nigeria, with the suspension of operations from the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.

He said the decision was based on the airline’s inability to make ends meet in view of the difficulties in accessing Foreign Exchange for its operations.

He also listed the high cost of aviation fuel and the state of the Abuja Airport runway as other impeding factors.

He however promised to transmit the Aviation Minister’s appeal and official commitment to address the issues to the Emirates Management for a possible reconsideration of the decision.