The Federal Government, Thursday announced that airlines from the European Union would not be allowed into Nigeria as the EU had failed to remove Nigeria from the list of countries banned from operation flights into the region because of fears of Covid-19 infection. The import of this is that only airlines from countries that allow flights from Nigeria will be allowed to operate scheduled flights into and out of Nigeria.
Making government’s position known on Thursday at the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19, Hadi Sirika, the Aviation Minister said the Nigerian government’s position draws from the ban placed by some countries on flights from Nigeria.
He said, “On the list of countries (that are banned), we are working on the comprehensive list, but the main one that came up is when the EU opened their borders effective 1st July, Nigeria was among the list of 54 countries that were not allowed to enter the EU.
“To my understanding, as the situation changes, they are going to look at the list and change it. But so far, we don’t have any contrary information to that first one that Nigeria is banned from going to the EU.
“So, as we open our airspace, we are going to apply the issue of reciprocity to those (EU) countries.”
Sirika also stated that inbound international passengers would be limited to 1,280.
He said only this number would be allowed to fly into the Lagos and Abuja airports once international flights resume on August 29, 2020.
