•Nigerians will soon be flying out from neighbouring countries —Foreign Airlines Association


FOREIGN airlines operating into Nigeria have concluded plans to blacklist the country should the Federal Government fail to remit their over $600 million trapped in the Central Bank of Nigeria. 

This indication followed announcement earlier made by Emirates airlines to stop its operations into Nigeria effective September 1st, 2022 to protest its accrued revenue amounting to $85 million stuck in Nigeria. 

Information gathered by Saturday Tribune has shown that the pull out of Emirates may be the beginning of the total collapse of the country’s international air transport as majority of the airlines have given the government up till December to release their trapped funds or have them withdraw their services from Nigeria. 

Confirming the development to the Saturday Tribune, the president of the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA), Mrs Suzan Akporiaye said that some of the affected foreign carriers had already informed her of plan to shutdown their operations in Nigeria as a way of avoiding a further increase in the amount of their trapped funds. 

According to Akporiaye: “I don’t know whether the government wants the situation to be so bad that the airlines have to stop flying to Nigeria, this is just the beginning, Emirates just started it but there are plans from other airlines from information reaching me, other foreign airlines are planning the same thing. Like I said you wouldn’t blame them, some of the airlines are saying that if by December there is no improvement that they will stop flying into Nigeria, but does our government want to wait for that to happen before they start running around. 

“Emirates attributed reasons for its suspension of flights to the lack of improvement in the situation. Nobody is talking to the foreign airlines, even the minister of aviation is not talking to them to even let the airlines know if the government is doing something to mitigate what is going on. It’s a sad situation that we shouldn’t have allowed to get to this stage.” 

Speaking on the announcement by Emirates to suspend flights into Nigeria, the NANTA president expressed reservations about the lack of patience displayed by the UAE airlines before deciding to pull its operations out of the country. 

She, however, push the blame on the federal government. 

Her words: “Emirates is right, they are a business entity. if they are not getting their funds they have every right to take whatever decision they want to take. I would have wished that they were a little bit more patient just like some other airlines that have told me that that they will hold on and be patient till the end of the year and that if nothing happens that they will stop flying, that is the aspect I felt Emirates should have followed because of the relationship and because of the fact that they know it is not a deliberate act by Nigeria not to pay their money, then again, it’s not their fault in any way, as a matter of fact it’s actually the fault of the Nigerian government. 

“Remember the Bilateral Air Service Agreements (BASA) signed between the foreign countries of the airlines and Nigeria says the airlines must be able to repatriate their funds unhindered and Nigeria as a country has not been complying with that and because Nigeria is not complying with that part of the BASA agreement, the airlines have every right to take any step they want to take even to the extent of stopping their flights into and out of Nigeria, yes they do. 

“We have failed in our own part of the agreement, we need to accept that it is the fault of the Nigerian government as it is but then they have to quickly come out to mitigate the crisis that is looming and staring us in the face. In fact, we are already in the crisis, we are touching it already as it is and how can they address this, is that let the government put the airlines’ funds on their priority list. So as it is now, we all know there is a global crisis no doubt and Nigeria like every other country is not exempted. Ours is just a peculiar case because of our population and Nigerians really travel and so ours will always be worse than any other country, look at the statistics, it’s not only Nigeria that has airlines’ trapped funds, it’s just that Nigeria has the highest so it’s a global crisis everywhere. What the government should do is to put the airlines funds on the priority list, call them for a meeting and let them know this is what you are about to do, telling them you will be able to get them certain percentage of their trapped funds and if the airlines hear this from government they will soft-pedal.” 

Akporiaye while talking on why the airlines need to be placed on the priority list premised her position on the fact benefits inherent in having foreigners coming to invest and do business in Nigeria as such foreigners come to spend foreign currency and not Naira. 


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“Let me mention here, one of the reasons why we need to place the airlines on the priority list is because we need the foreigners to begin to come to Nigeria, we have forex crisis no doubt and when foreigners come in either as visitors, businessmen or as investors, whichever way they are not going to be spending Naira but dollars. So aviation is an avenue for Nigeria to be receiving foreign currencies no matter how small but at least it’s coming in. So if they don’t place them on the priority list all the foreign carriers will stop flying into Nigeria, meaning no foreigner will come into Nigeria to spend foreign currency in our country, no investor will be able to come and invest in foreign currency and when foreign investors come in they spend foreign currencies and not Naira. So we need these investors to continue to come in even it may be the Nigerians in diaspora coming to establish one investment or the other, we need them to continue to come in. The only window we need to have to continue to get foreign currencies into our economy is to keep aviation open and let the airlines continue to fly in. Once that is not there then you have automatically shut down the window.” 

Supporting the foreign carriers, another travel expert who spoke under the condition of anonymity declared: “I have predicted this trend and it will continue. The Federal Government of Nigeria should ensure that it honours international commitments and repatriate blocked airline sales proceeds from Nigeria. Airlines are not charities and have high operational costs. According to reports Emirates Airlines have taken a wise and risk-averse decision and other airlines will implement different measures to mitigate their risks and financial exposure in this market.” 

This is just as the cleaning house for the international airlines around the globe, International Air Transport Association (IATA) blamed the federal government for failing to heed its warnings on the subsequent negative effects the continued withholding of the airlines’ funds will have on Nigerians. 

According to the IATA’s Regional Vice-President for Africa and the Middle East Kamil Alawahdi: “This is airline money and its repatriation is protected by international agreements in which Nigeria participates. IATA’s many warnings that failure to restore timely repatriation will hurt Nigeria with reduced air connectivity are proving true with the withdrawal of Emirates from the market. Airlines cannot be expected to fly if they cannot realize the revenue from ticket sales. 

Loss of air connectivity harms the local economy, hurts investor confidence, impacts jobs and people’s livelihoods. It’s time for the Government of Nigeria to prioritize the release of airline funds before more damage is done.” 

Among the over 27 foreign carriers operating into Nigeria include British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa, KLM/ Air France, Delta Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Emirates, Qatar Airways, South African Airways, Ethiopian Airline, Egypt Air and many others. 

The total pullout of the foreign airlines may mean cutting the country from the major parts of the world where Nigerians enjoy traveling to for either business, pleasures and even medical tourism.

Consequences 

Chairman of Association of Foreign Airlines Representatives in Nigeria (AFARN). 

Mr Kingsley Nwokeoma, told Saturday Tribune on Friday that the consequence of the blacklist will be Nigerians having to go to neighbouring countries to fly out to other parts of the world. 

“This has been a recurring decimal in the industry. The implications are: that more airlines will decrease frequencies as some have done already, and others might also stop their operations in Nigeria. 

“The consequences will be (Nigerian) air travellers will have to go to neighbouring countries to travel to various climes,” he said. 

Economy class ticket on Lagos/London route N2.3m 

There is fire on the mountain for Nigerian air travelers on both local and international routes as both local and foreign carriers have further increased their fares. 

Saturday Tribune on Friday found that for British Airways, an economy class ticket between Lagos and London route that used to attract between N350,000 and N500,000 has now skyrocketed to N2.3 million while an upper class cabin ticket is now sold for N5.3 million. 

Virgin Atlantic is also around that range. The high fares are however not limited to the foreign routes as even a one hour flight from Lagos to Abuja, for example has also increased to N200,000 or more as against the former N25,000 to N50,000. 

The high fares particularly on the international routes has led to a sharp decline in the numbers of Nigerians traveling out as attested to by the near half empty departure hall of the international wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport contrary to the usual heavy presence of passengers that used to abound there. 

Many of the aviation stakeholders spoken to by the Saturday Tribune have attributed the unaffordable fares to many reasons ranging from the high price of aviation fuel, devaluation of the Naira, to the lack of foreign exchange. 

In his reaction, Director at the Zenith Travels and a member of Aviation Round Table (ART), Mr Olumide Ohunayo traced the exorbitant fares on the international routes in particular to some measures so far taken by the foreign carriers to cushion the effects of their over $600 million funds trapped in the Central Bank of Nigeria which they could not repatriate to their home countries. 

Olumide declared: “The concurrent increase in the price of aviation fuel, Jet A1, the fallen value of the Naira and the withholding of the foreign airlines money by the CBN have all come together to make the fares out of Nigeria higher than normal. 

“The airlines have brought in some checks that if you are flying from outside into Nigeria, you can no longer buy their cheap tickets from Nigeria, you can only buy their tickets from outside and when you are buying from outside, it’s those crazy fares you will see and if you are in Nigeria, it’s those crazy fares you will see. That’s what they have done to safeguard themselves to cushion the effects of these triple issues that have bedeviled the foreign airlines in particular now. 

“What it says is that if you have to fly now you must have adequate cash liquid to fly and if you have anybody outside Nigeria coming in, you cannot buy internally you have to buy dollars to send outside to buy those tickets and that is the situation we have found ourselves. What will happen is that like today, we have seen that Emirates has stopped flying, we are to see some airlines reducing their frequencies and capacities and might cut down on some routes to Nigeria and might have total stoppage as Emirates has just done today even the oil marketers supplying them aviation fuel are not accepting Naira from them. That’s where we are now.” 

In his own comment, the managing director of Centurion Aviation Security and a onetime military commandant of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Group Captain John Ojikutu, retired, who described what has been happening as nothing unexpected in view of the rise in the price of aviation fuel and the sharp difference between the values of the Naira to the Dollar. 

He blamed the domestic airline operators for failing to comply with an earlier directives as far back as two decades ago that the local airlines fares on the domestic routes should be factored along the Dollar/Naira rates. 

“What is happening in the commercial aviation sector is not unexpected if the operators have been watching the trends of the fuel prices and the dollar/naira rates since the year 2000. None of them took note of the former Federal Civil Aviation Authority’s (FCAA), now Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) directive in 1989/90 that air fares should be factored along the dollar/naira rates. About that time when fuel was being refined locally and dollar/ naira rate was $/40, average air fare was between N3,800 to N4,000. 

“Since the advent of the civil administration in 1999/2000, we have been importing fuel and the prices have steadily been increasing from N80 to N120, N180, N200 per liter and now close to N900 and at the same trend, the dollar/ naira rate has increased from N180/$ to now N700/$. All these did not happen this year but over 20 years. Most of the airlines operators today are just about 10 years in operation except Aero. What were their business plans before they came in?” 

Suggesting the way out, Ojikutu called on those in government to stop the corruption and stealing surrounding crude oil exportation and importation of fuel and the prompt commissioning of the Dangote Refineries that was to come into operation in 2019 and postponed now to 2023. 

“Sell out the four NNPC Refineries to willing but credible foreign or local companies to stop the wastages of funds for the repairs that has been going on in the last 20 years. Repair the pipelines that are supplying fuel from the Atlas Cove and the NNPC deports to the airports and stop the bridging of the supply with truck tankers; direct the operators to open forex domiciliary account with the CBN where all their forex earnings MUST be deposited and the naira equivalent given to them which can be returned whenever the needs arise. No operator should benefit from the forex domiciliary account except it has deposit in it and the dollar/naira rates are increasing and not curtailed.” 

Many other key players who spoke to Saturday Tribune have agreed that on the whole, local air fares cannot go down as long as the importation of fuel continues while on the foreign routes, Nigerians will continue to lament unless the foreign airlines’ trapped funds are released to enable them relax the stringent measures.

https://tribuneonlineng.com/foreign-airlines-to-blacklist-nigeria-by-december-over-trapped-funds-nanta/

Lets see.

Why are countries trapping moneys of other countries?

divinehand2003:
•Nigerians will soon be flying out from neighbouring countries —Foreign Airlines Association


FOREIGN airlines operating into Nigeria have concluded plans to blacklist the country should the Federal Government fail to remit their over $600 million trapped in the Central Bank of Nigeria. 

This indication followed announcement earlier made by Emirates airlines to stop its operations into Nigeria effective September 1st, 2022 to protest its accrued revenue amounting to $85 million stuck in Nigeria. 

Information gathered by Saturday Tribune has shown that the pull out of Emirates may be the beginning of the total collapse of the country’s international air transport as majority of the airlines have given the government up till December to release their trapped funds or have them withdraw their services from Nigeria. 

Confirming the development to the Saturday Tribune, the president of the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA), Mrs Suzan Akporiaye said that some of the affected foreign carriers had already informed her of plan to shutdown their operations in Nigeria as a way of avoiding a further increase in the amount of their trapped funds. 

According to Akporiaye: “I don’t know whether the government wants the situation to be so bad that the airlines have to stop flying to Nigeria, this is just the beginning, Emirates just started it but there are plans from other airlines from information reaching me, other foreign airlines are planning the same thing. Like I said you wouldn’t blame them, some of the airlines are saying that if by December there is no improvement that they will stop flying into Nigeria, but does our government want to wait for that to happen before they start running around. 

“Emirates attributed reasons for its suspension of flights to the lack of improvement in the situation. Nobody is talking to the foreign airlines, even the minister of aviation is not talking to them to even let the airlines know if the government is doing something to mitigate what is going on. It’s a sad situation that we shouldn’t have allowed to get to this stage.” 

Speaking on the announcement by Emirates to suspend flights into Nigeria, the NANTA president expressed reservations about the lack of patience displayed by the UAE airlines before deciding to pull its operations out of the country. 

She, however, push the blame on the federal government. 

Her words: “Emirates is right, they are a business entity. if they are not getting their funds they have every right to take whatever decision they want to take. I would have wished that they were a little bit more patient just like some other airlines that have told me that that they will hold on and be patient till the end of the year and that if nothing happens that they will stop flying, that is the aspect I felt Emirates should have followed because of the relationship and because of the fact that they know it is not a deliberate act by Nigeria not to pay their money, then again, it’s not their fault in any way, as a matter of fact it’s actually the fault of the Nigerian government. 

“Remember the Bilateral Air Service Agreements (BASA) signed between the foreign countries of the airlines and Nigeria says the airlines must be able to repatriate their funds unhindered and Nigeria as a country has not been complying with that and because Nigeria is not complying with that part of the BASA agreement, the airlines have every right to take any step they want to take even to the extent of stopping their flights into and out of Nigeria, yes they do. 

“We have failed in our own part of the agreement, we need to accept that it is the fault of the Nigerian government as it is but then they have to quickly come out to mitigate the crisis that is looming and staring us in the face. In fact, we are already in the crisis, we are touching it already as it is and how can they address this, is that let the government put the airlines’ funds on their priority list. So as it is now, we all know there is a global crisis no doubt and Nigeria like every other country is not exempted. Ours is just a peculiar case because of our population and Nigerians really travel and so ours will always be worse than any other country, look at the statistics, it’s not only Nigeria that has airlines’ trapped funds, it’s just that Nigeria has the highest so it’s a global crisis everywhere. What the government should do is to put the airlines funds on the priority list, call them for a meeting and let them know this is what you are about to do, telling them you will be able to get them certain percentage of their trapped funds and if the airlines hear this from government they will soft-pedal.” 

Akporiaye while talking on why the airlines need to be placed on the priority list premised her position on the fact benefits inherent in having foreigners coming to invest and do business in Nigeria as such foreigners come to spend foreign currency and not Naira. 


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“Let me mention here, one of the reasons why we need to place the airlines on the priority list is because we need the foreigners to begin to come to Nigeria, we have forex crisis no doubt and when foreigners come in either as visitors, businessmen or as investors, whichever way they are not going to be spending Naira but dollars. So aviation is an avenue for Nigeria to be receiving foreign currencies no matter how small but at least it’s coming in. So if they don’t place them on the priority list all the foreign carriers will stop flying into Nigeria, meaning no foreigner will come into Nigeria to spend foreign currency in our country, no investor will be able to come and invest in foreign currency and when foreign investors come in they spend foreign currencies and not Naira. So we need these investors to continue to come in even it may be the Nigerians in diaspora coming to establish one investment or the other, we need them to continue to come in. The only window we need to have to continue to get foreign currencies into our economy is to keep aviation open and let the airlines continue to fly in. Once that is not there then you have automatically shut down the window.” 

Supporting the foreign carriers, another travel expert who spoke under the condition of anonymity declared: “I have predicted this trend and it will continue. The Federal Government of Nigeria should ensure that it honours international commitments and repatriate blocked airline sales proceeds from Nigeria. Airlines are not charities and have high operational costs. According to reports Emirates Airlines have taken a wise and risk-averse decision and other airlines will implement different measures to mitigate their risks and financial exposure in this market.” 

This is just as the cleaning house for the international airlines around the globe, International Air Transport Association (IATA) blamed the federal government for failing to heed its warnings on the subsequent negative effects the continued withholding of the airlines’ funds will have on Nigerians. 

According to the IATA’s Regional Vice-President for Africa and the Middle East Kamil Alawahdi: “This is airline money and its repatriation is protected by international agreements in which Nigeria participates. IATA’s many warnings that failure to restore timely repatriation will hurt Nigeria with reduced air connectivity are proving true with the withdrawal of Emirates from the market. Airlines cannot be expected to fly if they cannot realize the revenue from ticket sales. 

Loss of air connectivity harms the local economy, hurts investor confidence, impacts jobs and people’s livelihoods. It’s time for the Government of Nigeria to prioritize the release of airline funds before more damage is done.” 

Among the over 27 foreign carriers operating into Nigeria include British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa, KLM/ Air France, Delta Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Emirates, Qatar Airways, South African Airways, Ethiopian Airline, Egypt Air and many others. 

The total pullout of the foreign airlines may mean cutting the country from the major parts of the world where Nigerians enjoy traveling to for either business, pleasures and even medical tourism.

Consequences 

Chairman of Association of Foreign Airlines Representatives in Nigeria (AFARN). 

Mr Kingsley Nwokeoma, told Saturday Tribune on Friday that the consequence of the blacklist will be Nigerians having to go to neighbouring countries to fly out to other parts of the world. 

“This has been a recurring decimal in the industry. The implications are: that more airlines will decrease frequencies as some have done already, and others might also stop their operations in Nigeria. 

“The consequences will be (Nigerian) air travellers will have to go to neighbouring countries to travel to various climes,” he said. 

Economy class ticket on Lagos/London route N2.3m 

There is fire on the mountain for Nigerian air travelers on both local and international routes as both local and foreign carriers have further increased their fares. 

Saturday Tribune on Friday found that for British Airways, an economy class ticket between Lagos and London route that used to attract between N350,000 and N500,000 has now skyrocketed to N2.3 million while an upper class cabin ticket is now sold for N5.3 million. 

Virgin Atlantic is also around that range. The high fares are however not limited to the foreign routes as even a one hour flight from Lagos to Abuja, for example has also increased to N200,000 or more as against the former N25,000 to N50,000. 

The high fares particularly on the international routes has led to a sharp decline in the numbers of Nigerians traveling out as attested to by the near half empty departure hall of the international wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport contrary to the usual heavy presence of passengers that used to abound there. 

Many of the aviation stakeholders spoken to by the Saturday Tribune have attributed the unaffordable fares to many reasons ranging from the high price of aviation fuel, devaluation of the Naira, to the lack of foreign exchange. 

In his reaction, Director at the Zenith Travels and a member of Aviation Round Table (ART), Mr Olumide Ohunayo traced the exorbitant fares on the international routes in particular to some measures so far taken by the foreign carriers to cushion the effects of their over $600 million funds trapped in the Central Bank of Nigeria which they could not repatriate to their home countries. 

Olumide declared: “The concurrent increase in the price of aviation fuel, Jet A1, the fallen value of the Naira and the withholding of the foreign airlines money by the CBN have all come together to make the fares out of Nigeria higher than normal. 

“The airlines have brought in some checks that if you are flying from outside into Nigeria, you can no longer buy their cheap tickets from Nigeria, you can only buy their tickets from outside and when you are buying from outside, it’s those crazy fares you will see and if you are in Nigeria, it’s those crazy fares you will see. That’s what they have done to safeguard themselves to cushion the effects of these triple issues that have bedeviled the foreign airlines in particular now. 

“What it says is that if you have to fly now you must have adequate cash liquid to fly and if you have anybody outside Nigeria coming in, you cannot buy internally you have to buy dollars to send outside to buy those tickets and that is the situation we have found ourselves. What will happen is that like today, we have seen that Emirates has stopped flying, we are to see some airlines reducing their frequencies and capacities and might cut down on some routes to Nigeria and might have total stoppage as Emirates has just done today even the oil marketers supplying them aviation fuel are not accepting Naira from them. That’s where we are now.” 

In his own comment, the managing director of Centurion Aviation Security and a onetime military commandant of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Group Captain John Ojikutu, retired, who described what has been happening as nothing unexpected in view of the rise in the price of aviation fuel and the sharp difference between the values of the Naira to the Dollar. 

He blamed the domestic airline operators for failing to comply with an earlier directives as far back as two decades ago that the local airlines fares on the domestic routes should be factored along the Dollar/Naira rates. 

“What is happening in the commercial aviation sector is not unexpected if the operators have been watching the trends of the fuel prices and the dollar/naira rates since the year 2000. None of them took note of the former Federal Civil Aviation Authority’s (FCAA), now Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) directive in 1989/90 that air fares should be factored along the dollar/naira rates. About that time when fuel was being refined locally and dollar/ naira rate was $/40, average air fare was between N3,800 to N4,000. 

“Since the advent of the civil administration in 1999/2000, we have been importing fuel and the prices have steadily been increasing from N80 to N120, N180, N200 per liter and now close to N900 and at the same trend, the dollar/ naira rate has increased from N180/$ to now N700/$. All these did not happen this year but over 20 years. Most of the airlines operators today are just about 10 years in operation except Aero. What were their business plans before they came in?” 

Suggesting the way out, Ojikutu called on those in government to stop the corruption and stealing surrounding crude oil exportation and importation of fuel and the prompt commissioning of the Dangote Refineries that was to come into operation in 2019 and postponed now to 2023. 

“Sell out the four NNPC Refineries to willing but credible foreign or local companies to stop the wastages of funds for the repairs that has been going on in the last 20 years. Repair the pipelines that are supplying fuel from the Atlas Cove and the NNPC deports to the airports and stop the bridging of the supply with truck tankers; direct the operators to open forex domiciliary account with the CBN where all their forex earnings MUST be deposited and the naira equivalent given to them which can be returned whenever the needs arise. No operator should benefit from the forex domiciliary account except it has deposit in it and the dollar/naira rates are increasing and not curtailed.” 

Many other key players who spoke to Saturday Tribune have agreed that on the whole, local air fares cannot go down as long as the importation of fuel continues while on the foreign routes, Nigerians will continue to lament unless the foreign airlines’ trapped funds are released to enable them relax the stringent measures.

https://tribuneonlineng.com/foreign-airlines-to-blacklist-nigeria-by-december-over-trapped-funds-nanta/

we don't have dollars and we don't print dollars in Nigeria .they should use the naira to buy cocoa,ginger palm Kernel's to export and make their dollars win win .for Nigeria and the airlines

Must one travel thru Nigeria? It's quite cheaper to travel through Benin Republic but many don't know this.

dat guy wey quote d whole post need to visit a psychiatric as soon as possible.

divinehand2003:
Why are countries trapping moneys of other countries?

if that 600 m leave nigeria, naira will hit 1000

After reading all this, all I can say is "it is well". All these shall pass through soonest.

OkpaNsukkaisBae:
dat guy wey quote d whole post need to visit a psychiatric as soon as possible.

I dey tell you.

Very annoying gesture.

We wanted change. We got change. Sensible people will want to do away with this present government and the party. But Nigerians are fools and are in love with their captors