Many travellers will be wondering why the Nigeria Government restricted emirates airline from flying to and from Nigeria. While many applauded the government for taking the reciprocal action, others are asking why the government did not do it immediately Emirates Suspended flights to Nigeria.
We understand that some people are still in the dark that is they don’t even know what is going on at all. Well, the whole suspension upon suspension is all about Corona Virus, PCR test and Rapid Antigen Test (RDT) Four (4) hours from the time of flights departure.
This is what Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, has to say concerning the flight suspension.
Sirika said: “We gave the two airlines options of either have a PCR test 72 hours before departure or within 72 hours before departure and repeat the PCR test on arrival or have a rapid test before departure and have PCR on arrival but not the combination of the three because it doesn’t make scientific sense.
“It makes the facilitation of passengers very cumbersome and it makes our work difficult and passengers are going through unnecessary hardship, which is not acceptable.
“Both airlines decided to carry only inbound passengers and not take outbound passengers but their reasons are adverse which doesn’t make sense.
“So, we gave them the option to do what we believe is safe and correct and KLM has accepted to bring passengers in and out on the conditions that we agreed upon which is to have a PCR test within 72 hours.
“Emirate didn’t accept the position and so, we have asked that Emirate be banned from operations midnight Wednesday and that has been communicated with them since Sunday but like the PTF chairman has said, if they come back to us to resume as KLM has done, they will be allowed, otherwise, the status quo remains and they would be banned from an inbound and outbound flight.
“KLM has agreed to start immediately and they would be allowed to do so.”
Although, Emirates has confirmed talks with the federal government over the flight ban and the way forward. There is no update yet after the talks. We hope things will resume back to normal soon.
