Emirates Airlines Withdraws its Flights from Nigeria Over Debt Row

Emirates Airlines on Thursday 17th August Announced that it had put on hold flight operations in and out of Nigeria due to its inability to repatriate funds from the West African country.

Christine Juma Christine Juma
Aug 19, 2022 - 12:45
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Emirates Airlines Withdraws its Flights from Nigeria Over Debt Row

The airline claimed that efforts to contact Nigerian officials in search of a resolution have made "no progress."

"Emirates has tried every avenue to address our ongoing challenges in repatriating funds from Nigeria and have made considerable efforts to initiate dialogue with the relevant authorities for their urgent intervention to help find a viable solution. Regrettable there has been no progress," Emirates said in a statement.

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The decision was made in response to Emirates' announcement last month that it would cut back on its flights to Lagos, the commercial center of Nigeria. The airline claimed it was unable to access $85 million in money that had been withheld in the nation.

In a letter to Nigeria's Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika, the airline claimed that the amount of funds that were stranded had been increasing by more than $10 million {1,197,500,000.00 Kenyan Shilling} each month.

According to Sirika, who spoke to a popular online publication, Nigeria has a history of hanging onto substantial sums of money that belonged to foreign airlines.

"In the past, Nigeria has demonstrated the capacity and the willingness and fairness to resolve this type of issue. It happened when we took over power in 2015: There were lots of blocked funds, about $600 million at that time. It was at a time when the country was in a recession and there were dwindling revenues coming to the country, yet we honored our obligation to pay out all those blocked funds," Sirika told CNN Thursday.

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"Unfortunately, due to many factors and reasons, the monies piled back up. The government is working hard to ensure that these monies are released, not only for Emirates but all airlines affected," Sirika added.

The Emirates Flights cancellation comes at a time, it announced that it will be introducing the first ever A380 flights to Bengaluru from 30 October!.

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