Business
Trapped Funds: Emirates Suspends Flight Operations Indefinitely
Sequel to its funds that have been trapped in Nigeria for some time now, the Dubai-based Emirates Airlines has suspended its flight operations into Nigeria indefinitely.
The airline in a statement made available to Aviation correspondents, stated that the airline had no option than to suspend flights to and from Nigeria to mitigate against further losses going 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, and considered that this critical issue would be swiftly resolved with the subsequent clearance of our remaining funds.
“However, Emirates has yet to receive an allocation of our blocked funds to be repatriated. 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 we simply cannot meet our operational costs nor maintain the commercial viability of our operations in Nigeria”, the statement explained.
The Dubai-based airline also stated that this new decision became necessary as it had attended multiple hearings with the Nigerian government and officially communicated its position.
The Emirates also made it known that it had made its proposed approach clear to alleviate this untenable situation, including a plan for the progressive release of funds, which included the repatriation and receipt of at least 80 per cent of its remaining blocked funds by the end of October 2022, in addition to providing a guaranteed mechanism to avoid future repatriation accumulation challenges and delays.
and a stakeholder in the aviation sector, Kingsley Nwokoma, has said other airlines were most likely to follow in the steps of the Emirates airlines.
According to him, “Tickets are being sold every minute. That means there’ll be more funds stuck here so even if the Federal Government says they’re releasing XYZ amount, the problem has not been solved.
“The solution is for all parties to sit and deliberate on how these monies would be paid. Apparently, no airline will want to keep running at a loss because they are not even sure of the next day.
“There’s a likelihood that other airlines might follow in the steps of Emirates if this is not properly diagonised. Some other countries owe, but not as much as Nigeria and the airlines need this money to function”, he said.
By: Corlins Walter