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Two years after the United Arab Emirates, UAE, flag carrier, Emirates, suspended operations in Nigeria, the Middle East airline, Tuesday, landed at the Murtala Muhammad International Airport (MMIA), Lagos.
Flight no. EK 783 touched down at the old terminal of the MMIA at 3:32 p.m., confirming the carrier’s resumption.
Persecondnews recalls that the Minister of Aviation, Mr. Festus Keyamo, had announced about two weeks ago that Emirates will resume flights to Nigeria on October 1.
However, before the flight, a senior first officer at Emirates, Moha Madugu, had expressed his happiness on X, formerly Twitter, stating: “A very special day for me today. I have the honour of operating our inaugural return flight to Lagos, Nigeria. Today I will be flying both the Emirates and Nigerian flag very high. Thank you, Emirates. A flight time of slightly over eight hours today. #EkoOniBaje.”
Persecondnews also recalls that in November 2022, Emirates suspended flight operations to Nigeria due to an inability to repatriate its $85 million trapped funds.
The suspension was the second time the airline halted flights to Nigeria, with the first occurring in August 2022.
Speaking on the development, a travel analyst, Mr. Olumide Ohunayo, said: “The departure of Emirates from their routes—those 21 flights a week affected 85 percent to 90 percent of their passengers who go to points beyond Dubai, beyond the UAE. It affected or contributed to the high rate of ticket fares on international routes.
“There was a large chunk of seats that was taken away by Emirates, and that reduced competition. The few airlines left capitalised on the fact that Emirates suspended operations.
“One of them was Qatar Airways and other airlines from Egypt and Morocco. All just used that opportunity to jack up their fares.
“Emirates pulled out and it affected the industry. There was a loss of revenue in the country’s aviation eco-chain. Everybody had that hit because Emirates was not there, from the agencies to the taxis, to the airport taxis, to the service providers, even the catering, everybody felt the pain of their departure.”
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