Flights between the United States and Nigeria were temporarily impacted following a system glitch, which prompted the US government to ground all flights in the country.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed the glitch in its notice-to-air missions (NOTAM) system in a statement.
FAA is responsible for regulating all aspects and protocols related to aviation for all flights entering and leaving the US.
The shutdown, which started in the early hours of Wednesday US time, left millions of passengers stranded globally as no flight could take off or land from the US.
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In Nigeria, many passengers were equally impacted, it was learnt but airlines expressed relief as the shutdown has been lifted as of press time.
Two US Airlines- Delta and United – fly directly to the US from Lagos. While the Delta carries out Lagos-Atlanta flights, United operates to Washington.
Checks on the two flights indicated that they would be operated as scheduled but with some delays.
At the time of filing this report, it showed that the flights would operate as scheduled but they were yet to depart the US as of press time based on the information provided on flight tracker.
Delta flights only showed scheduled without indicating time of departure.
“Yes, the flights would still operate. The airlines have not announced they would be cancelling the flights but normally you should expect some delays as the operators resume flights in the US.”
United in a notice on its website said, “The FAA has lifted their nationwide ground stop and we’ve resumed operations. You may continue to see delays and cancellations as we work to restore our schedule. If you need to change your flight, we’ve issued a travel waiver.”
Aviation and travel analyst, Olumide Ohunayo said the system failure would have an effect on Nigerian flights.
He said, “Even if the flight had taken off from Nigeria before the system failure, the flight cannot land. It would rather land in Canada or Mexico pending when the failure is addressed and the shutdown lifted.”
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