Emirates Airlines has announced the indefinite suspension of flights to Nigeria over its inability to repatriate funds trapped in the country.
The airline in a statement on Thursday said it has no option but to suspend flights to/from Nigeria from 29 October 2022 to mitigate against further losses moving forward.
“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.
“However, Emirates has yet to receive an allocation of our blocked funds to be repatriated."
According to the airline, without the timely repatriation of the funds and a mechanism in place to ensure that future repatriation of Emirates’ funds do not accumulate in any way, the backlog will continue to grow, and the airline simply cannot meet its operational costs nor maintain the commercial viability of its operations in Nigeria.
