The federal government has appealed to Emirates Airline and other foreign airlines operating in the country not to pack up.
James Odaudu, deputy director in the ministry of aviation, 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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