Minister of Aviation
Intending international passengers to and from Nigeria may should begin to rejoice now as indications emerged today that the country may open her airspace to scheduled international flight operations before the end of August.
The indications emerged during the daily briefing of Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 in Abuja.
Speaking during the briefing, Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika hinted that the sector is willing to return to international flight operations any moment from now.
Sirika who did not give any specific date for the resumption of the international operations, however stated that they would resume in a matter of weeks.
According to him: “We in civil aviation want to open like yesterday. We are bleeding. We are sacking our workers, we are not paying salaries.
“We must move or fly from one point to another in order for us to remain in business but that is not the case now. So, we really want to open but we can’t open alone.
“PTF has set up a technical committee to come up with the state where everybody is happy to start.
“If it were up to us, we won’t even close the airports but we were forced by the virus to close.
“So, we will open as soon as all of us are happy to open and I want to adopt what the national coordinator has said by saying, it will be in weeks rather than in months for international flights to resume.
“So please do not blame any of us because we have been putting efforts to ensure we open.
“We feel your pain and we know that the closure of the airports has separated families and friends and denied some access to hospitals abroad, schools and businesses.
“The continuous closure is not on purpose or punitive, it is just to ensure that we remain safe and healthy and the government is conscious of this fact and we are all aware of the adverse effects of the coronavirus pandemic.”
