UAE makes concession, gives ‘conditional’ approval for six flights to Dubai

 

  • Ministry, airline keep mum
  • Emirates may still retain 21 frequencies

 

 

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) may have succumbed to pressure from Nigeria by granting Nigeria’s flag carrier airline, Air Peace six flight rights to Dubai.

The diplomatic face-off may be coming to an end soon as both nations may eventually settle for six flights for Air Peace, but still unknown whether Emirates would still keep the 21 frequencies it had before the face-off last occurred last week.

The Dubai Civil Aviation Authority had in a letter dated December 13th, to the Chief Executive Officer of Air Peace, Allen Onyema entitled, “Operations of Air Services between Dubai and Nigeria”, signed by the DCAA Director-General, Mohammed A. Ahli says, “Relations between our two countries go a long way back and we value these relations immensely. We surely wish to facilitate easy and safe travel for the people, between our two brotherly countries”.

The letter further stated, ‘We write in reference to Air Peace’s possible/intended operations to/from Dubai Airports (DXB). We have received information from Dubai Airports with regard to slot availability at DXB –Terminal 1 and as a gesture of goodwill and in support of UAE and Nigeria relations, in case Air Peace wish to start their flights, slots have been blocked by Dubai Airports as A0540LT D0800LT- All days except day six.

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Ahli maintained that contrary to Air Peace’s insistence, slots cannot be blocked indefinitely, adding, “We would highly appreciate if Air Peace could kindly reach out to Dubai Airports-ACL and inform them of their intentions to operate by Thursday, December 16th, 2021, and accordingly confirm the blocked slots”.

 

 

He further explained that the Dubai Airports have also confirmed that dnata-the ground handling agents at Dubai had sent the ground handling quotations to Mrs. Reham Mustafa-Country Manager.

Emirates Flight Catering, he also said is working on the quotation and should send it out latest by tomorrow morning (Today).

He said they look forward to Air Peace operating with utmost confidence to/from Dubai at the soonest.

There is no official response yet either from the Ministry of Aviation whether the country would accept the conditions attached to the daily flight granted to Air Peace.

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Air Peace is yet to respond to the letter whether it had accepted to operate the six frequencies or not and when it plans to begin direct flights to Dubai.

The two nations had engaged in a spat when the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, and the Director-General of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Capt. Musa Nuhu restricted Emirates to just one weekly flight to Abuja after discussions broke down over restricting Nigerian flag carrier Air Peace to just one flight to Sharjah.

Piqued by the decision of Sirika and Nuhu, the carrier immediately withdrew flight services from Nigeria in what led to a diplomatic row between the two countries.

The hostility led to the UAE directing other carriers not to airlift Nigerians to their country through a third country as many Nigerians on other carriers were de-boarded as a result of the imbroglio.

Meanwhile, the UAE government may have rescinded its decision against Nigerian travelers as some of the international carri­ers who earlier rejected to board Nigerians seem to be now ready to airlift Nigerian passen­gers from Tuesday.

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UAE had disallowed quite a number of Nigerians to enter the country on Monday following a circular issued to all the foreign airlines.

 

The circular titled: ‘Dubai Travel Restriction Up­date,’ dated December 13, 2021, with the reference number: PSA 12/068/2021, directed car­riers not to airlift Nigerians and citizens of the Congo Democrat­ic Republic only from Africa.

The circular said: “Due to an increasing number of COVID Positive passengers at destina­tion, it is decided to suspend accepting passengers to U.A.E from Nigeria and Congo DRC (FIH) only.

“This is effective today, 13th December 2021. Please ensure 100% compliance.”

However, the latest update shows that most airlines are ready to resume boarding for Nigerians from today.

Wole Shadare