Emirates Airlines suspends all flights to and from Nigeria over forex repatriation crisis

MIDDLE Eastern carrier Emirates Airlines has announced the suspension of all flights to and from Nigeria blaming the decision on its inability to repatriate its revenue from the country as a result on the ongoing financial crisis.

As a result of the scarcity of foreign exchange in Nigeria, at least, $600m belonging to over 20 foreign airlines has been held in the country since the beginning of the year. Because they are unable to convert their earnings from naira into dollars due to the dollar scarcity the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is witnessing, these airlines are unable to repatriate their funds to their home countries.

In August, Emirates Airlines announced that it plans to suspend all flights to and from Nigeria in response to the crisis. It has now introduced the measure, pointing out that the measure came into effect on October 29.

According to the airline, it had no option but to suspend flights to and from Nigeria to mitigate further losses. A company spokesman said that the move followed a failed intervention by the CBN to resolve the issue of trapped aviation funds as Emirates was unable to repatriate $85m in revenue.

“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," the company spokesman said.