Emirates Airlines has concluded plans to return to Abuja route after exiting the route a year ago.
The Minister of State, Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika announced the airline’s return on his twitter handle yesterday, @hadisirika.
“Glad to inform that Emirates will recommence Abuja flight on the 15th of December, 2017. Thanks for bearing with us” the minister said.
Emirates was initially billed to return to the Abuja route yesterday but failed.
However, Sirika said “we are still working hard but must apologize that 1st of November is not likely, will report progress later. Please bear with us. Apologies!”
It will be recalled that the reasons for the deferred resumption of Emirates wasn’t disclosed by the airline and the Minister.
Emirates had stopped its flight operations to the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja at the end of October 2016 following its inability to buy forex and remit its sales.
The airline had also cited the bad runway at the Abuja airport and scarcity of jet A1 (aviation fuel) as other reasons why it was pulling out of the second busiest route in Nigeria but all of those have been addressed by the Nigerian government.
Forex is now available to airlines on demand and aviation fuel is no longer scarce. Also, the damaged Abuja runway has been fixed.
The Nigerian travel agents have also consistently called on Emirates to return to Abuja as their revenue stream has been hurt with the airline’s absence, Daily Trust learnt.
See the minister’s tweet below:
Glad to inform that Emirates will recommence Abuja flight on the 15th of December, 2017. Thanks for bearing with us.??????
— Hadi Sirika (@hadisirika) November 1, 2017
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