Federal Government of Nigeria will only allow 1,280 inbound passengers at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos and the same numbers at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja daily for a period to mitigate against the likely spread of Covid-19 in the country as it opens for international flight operations come August 29.

Also, the country will enforce the principle of reciprocity in granting permission to airlines to resume operations into the country as it opens its airspace.

Speaking at the bi-weekly briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, said the ban placed by some countries on flights from Nigeria informed Nigeria’s position.

According to Sirika, what this means is that only airlines from countries that allow flights from Nigeria will be allowed to fly into and out of Nigeria.

He stated that for now, only a few flights per day would be permitted, adding that they would operate as test runs of the protocols put in place to ensure the safe return to international operations.

The protocols, according to him, would be made public in due course.

He said only this number would be allowed to fly into the Lagos and Abuja airports once international flights resume on August 29, 2020.

The minister who was represented by the Director-General, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, Capt. Musa Nuhu declared that the decision was taken in the interest of Nigerians.

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 could not enter the EU.

“To my understanding, as the situation changes, they will 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 airlines would be informed on arrangements that had been put in place to ensure that the resumption of flights is hitch-free.

SOURCE: AviationAges