Nigeria has secured reciprocal flight rights for its local airlines to begin operations to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, made the disclosure via his official X (formerly Twitter) account on Friday.
This resolution followed a meeting held in the UAE between the Minister, his technical team, and UAE officials, where both delegations negotiated a new Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) to guide the aviation relationship between the two nations.
“Ahead of the resumption of Emirates flights to Nigeria next week Tuesday, I was in the UAE earlier today, together with my technical team, for the negotiation of a new Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) between both countries to guide our new relationship henceforth.
“Today, we firmly agreed on the reciprocal rights our local airlines will also have to begin flight operations to the UAE,” Keyamo’s post read.
This new BASA arrangement comes just four days before Emirates Airlines is set to resume flight operations to Nigeria on October 1, 2024, after having suspended its services to the country in 2022.
In October 2022, Emirates Airlines suspended its flight operations to Nigeria due to difficulties in repatriating trapped funds from the country.
At the time, the airline cited the lack of progress despite assurances from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to address its foreign exchange issues, which ultimately led to the suspension.
A year later, in October 2023, President Bola Tinubu, during a diplomatic visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), reached an agreement with the UAE President to lift the visa ban on Nigerians and resume flights between the two countries.
While the agreement was reached, Temitope Ajayi, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, clarified that officials from both nations needed to finalize the agreement’s details before flights could resume, meaning operations wouldn’t start immediately.
By May 2024, Emirates Airlines confirmed that its flight operations to Nigeria would resume on October 1, 2024, according to the airline’s Deputy President and Chief Commercial Officer, Adnan Kazim.
The flights will be operated using a Boeing 777-300ER, with Flight EK783 departing from Dubai at 0945hrs and arriving in Lagos at 1520hrs. The return flight, EK784, will depart Lagos at 1730hrs, arriving in Dubai at 0510hrs the following day.