The federal government has appealed to Emirates Airline and other
foreign airlines operating here in Nigeria not to leave.
The deputy director in the ministry of aviation, James Odaudu, quoted
Hadi Sirika, minister of state for aviation, as making this plea in Abuja
during a visit by Manoj Gopi Nair, West African regional manager for Emirates.
Sirika assured the operators that the challenges confronting the
aviation sector would soon be resolved.
“The minister appealed to the management of Emirates and other airlines
to reconsider their decisions to either suspend their operations or scale them
down, considering the adverse effects on their long-standing costumers and the
benefits they had reaped in the past,” Oduadu said in a statement.
“Government is not unaware of the issues that have created operational
difficulties for both domestic and foreign airlines, such as Foreign Exchange,
Aviation fuel and infrastructural deficiencies and the government has been up
and doing to ensure the creation of an environment that is both enabling and
profitable for all airlines to operate”, he added.
However, Nair explained that the decision to move out of the country
was based on poor access to foreign exchange, high cost of aviation fuel and
the state of the Abuja Airport runway.
On infrastructural deficiencies at the Abuja airport, Sirika said the
government was already handling the issue, noting that the long-term solution
was to concession the major airports.
He added that the scarcity of aviation fuel, which threatened to
cripple the industry in the recent past, had been resolved.
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