Emirates will resume flights to Nigeria almost two years after suspending flights due to millions of dollars in blocked funds

Emirates has announced plans to resume flights to Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos, in October, almost two years after halting flights to the West African country because of millions of dollars in revenue stuck in the country.

The Dubai-based airline last operated a scheduled flight to Lagos on October 28, 2022, after warning that the route would have to be suspended unless the Nigerian government provided funding for repatriation to the UAE.

At the height of the dispute, Emirates said more than $85 million in cash was trapped in Nigeria and that the airline’s losses were increasing by around $10 million each month.

As a result, the airline is effectively making a loss operating flights to Nigeria and will be forced to suspend flights unless the situation changes.

Emirates did not directly reference the cash dispute in its announcement on Thursday that it would resume non-stop flights between Dubai and Lagos from October 1, 2024.

However, the airline’s deputy president and chief commercial officer, Adnan Kazim, thanked the Nigerian government “for its partnership and support in restoring this route.”

The problem of airlines’ trapped funds was not just limited to Emirates, and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimated that the Nigerian government withheld more than $1 billion in flight revenue from international airlines in 2022.

There are a number of countries that have made it difficult for international airlines to repatriate revenue back home. The worst offenders include Nigeria, Pakistan and Egypt.

Before suspending flights, Nigeria’s central bank had promised to release some of the withheld funds, but Emirates claimed the money was never received, leading to the airline suspending its flights.

Since then, Nigeria has been slowly releasing trapped cash, although the country remains on IATA’s watchlist. Last month, IATA warned that Pakistan and Bangladesh were currently the worst offenders, with around $720 million in airline revenue being withheld in those two markets.

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