Nigeria has secured reciprocal flight rights for local airlines to begin operations to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development Festus Keyamo disclosed this information on Friday through his official X (formerly Twitter) account.
The resolution follows a meeting held in the UAE between ministers, technical teams and UAE officials, where both delegations discussed the new Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) that will guide aviation relations between the two countries. We negotiated.
“Ahead of the resumption of Emirates flights to Nigeria next Tuesday, I was in a technical meeting early today to negotiate a new Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) between our two countries that will guide our new relationship going forward. I was in the UAE with my team.”
“Today, we have firmly agreed on the mutual rights necessary for local airlines to also begin operating to the UAE,” Keyamo’s post said.
The new BASA agreement comes just four days before Emirates will resume flights to Nigeria on October 1, 2024, after ceasing flights to the country in 2022.
What you need to know
In October 2022, Emirates temporarily suspended flight operations to Nigeria due to difficulties in repatriating stuck funds from Nigeria.
At the time, the airline said that despite assurances from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to address the foreign exchange issue, there was no progress, which ultimately led to the grounding.
One year later, in October 2023, President Bola Tinubu, during a diplomatic visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), agreed with the UAE President to lift the visa ban on Nigerians and resume air services between the two countries. An agreement was reached.
Although an agreement has been reached, Temitope Ajayi, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, said officials from both countries need to finalize the details of the agreement before flights can resume, meaning flights will not begin immediately. It was announced that it would not start.
Emirates has confirmed that it will resume flights to Nigeria on October 1, 2024, by May 2024, according to Adnan Kazim, the airline’s vice president and chief commercial officer.
The flight will be operated by a Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, and flight EK783 will depart Dubai at 9:45am and arrive in Lagos at 15:20pm. The return flight EK784 will depart from Lagos at 17:30 and arrive in Dubai at 05:10 the next day.
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