Ethiopian Airline evacuates foreigners from Lagos

Ethiopian Airlines said it would operate its last evacuation flights out of Nigeria today as the Federal Government draws the curtain on evacuation flights on August 25.

An official of Ethiopian Airlines in Nigeria, Tilahun Tadesse, made the clarification in a statement on Thursday.

The clarification was against the backdrop of reports alleging the airline doing commercial flights in Nigeria in violation of the ban on international flights.

Daily Trust learnt that ET has been operating evacuation flights for Nigeria since the COVID-19 restrictions started.

On this contested flights, this paper gathered that the airline got approval to operate the special flights out of Nigeria to evacuate Ethiopians and the airline’s stranded foreign passengers from Lagos to Addis Ababa and all ET active destinations.

Those on the flight were ET’s passengers with unused tickets, sources said.

But restating its compliance, the airline in a statement said, “The Airline is planning to resume regular operations when Nigeria officially opens its Airports for international Flights.”

However, some analysts disagreed with ET. Mr. Olumide Ohunayo, Director of Research and Strategy at Zenith Travels believed foreign airlines have been breaching the airport closure order in the guise of evacuation flights.

“They have been flying to Nigeria since March, they did not fly the Ethiopians then, it is now that they said they are opening the sky in the next one week that they suddenly realized they have some stranded people. I do not buy that story.”

President of Aviation Roundtable (ART), Elder Gbenga Olowo, had expressed worry over these evacuation flights which he said, had replaced commercial flights.

“I am particularly worried why evacuation flight is seemingly replacing commercial flights. Tickets are presently sold higher and above regular commercial rates.”