Foreign airlines are set to depart Nigeria’s airspace soon
The International Air Transport Association (IATA), has raised indications that foreign airlines may be planning to exit Nigeria’s airspace soon at the backdrop of the worsening operating environment.
Recall, several exits of foreign businesses from the country this year, the latest being Procter & Gamble of United States, which announced their decision pull out last week barely months after another multinational corporation, GlaxoSmitKline, took similar step.
The key challenge, according to the IATA, remains the inability to raise the foreign currency required for their operations as over $792 million of the funds are still trapped in Nigeria, a development that is currently threatening their operations globally.
In Nigeria, foreign airlines collect Naira for their tickets to customers and exchange the same for foreign currencies for their operations.
But they have been lamenting their inability to get the exchange executed through the official foreign exchange market due to the scarcity of foreign exchange resources.
The development has already seen the UAE’s flag carrier, Emirates Airlines which exited the country’s airspace last year still refusing to come back despite intervention from President Bola Tinubu.
President Tinubu had directed the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, to create a platform for quarterly reconciliatory meetings with foreign airlines to address the backlog of their fund.
But till date, nothing has come out from it, as there have neither been any meeting or funds released to any of the airlines.
