Coronavirus-Weary Nigerian Elites Snap Up Tickets as International Flights Resume
When the Nigerian aviation authorities announced the resumption of international flights, industry watchers took a wait-and-see attitude, half expecting Nigerians to embark mostly on very essential travel out of the fear of the new coronavirus infection. But since international flights resumed on Saturday the 5th of September, 2020 after five months of closure of the Nigerian airspace, the evidence belies this expectation. Arbiterz’s discussion with airlines’ staff and travel agents on a visit to the Murtala Mohammed International Airport to witness the first day of international flights landing in Nigeria shows that rich Nigerians who have been locked in the country and mostly within Lagos as a result of the closure of the airports and other restrictions to control the novel coronavirus are enthusiastically taking advantage of the resumption of international flights to Nigeria to travel abroad.
A local staff of Emirates told us, “so many people are buying tickets. You would think people just want to stay indoors and keep their heads low due to the coronavirus pandemic, but you would be surprised at the number of people that have booked online alone, not to even talk of those that are coming in to our office to book”.
Fred Mba, a travel agent that works with Travelbeta said, “a lot of people have already booked a ticket to Dubai with us, they have also paid all the necessary fees, done their COVID-19 test just to present to the authorities when they are about to board. People are tired of sitting at home, a lot of these rich kids want to go on vacation. None of them care about the whole COVID-19 saga”.
Read: Emirates Resumes Lagos and Abuja Flights, Offers Free COVID-19 Treatment
The Federal Ministry of Aviation has set out strict safety measures for passengers and airlines wishing to enter the country. These include passengers presenting a negative COVID-19 test result done more than four days before departure in addition to being tested again on arrival in Nigeria. This seems to have worked very well since flights started landing in Nigeria on September 5. Airlines that fly a passenger without a COVID-19 negative test result face a $3,500 fine and will be compelled to return the passenger to the country of departure.
A staff of British Airways that spoke to us anonymously said, “There is a massive turn out to buy tickets. A lot of Nigerians that have been stuck abroad want to come home. Many Nigerians also want to travel for holiday even though summer is really over. B.A has a sales now, so this is an additional incentives for people to buy tickets and travel. There are amazing deals to over 150 destinations worldwide for travel until August 2021. You just have to buy your ticket by the 30th of September, 2020”.
Mrs. Titilope Adeyemi, a travel agent that specialises in selling tickets and packages for holidays told us that a lot of her customers booked tickets to travel to Dubai and the Maldives once the Federal Government announced that international flights would resume. These destinations whose economies depend significantly on tourism had earlier opened their airspaces to international arrivals. Mrs. Adeyemi said she is quite satisfied with ticket sales and looks forward to more sales from next month as her customers who spend Christmas outside the country start to buy tickets to travel in December.
The first commercial flight to land at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) after the airport reopened on September 5 was a Middle East Airlines (MEA) flight which arrived Lagos at about 2.20 p.m. from Beirut.
Only 14 airlines have so far been given the green light to fly to Nigeria. They are: Middle-East Airlines, British Airways, Delta Airlines, Qatar Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, EgyptAir, Air Peace, Virgin Atlantic, Asky, Africa World Airways, Air Cote-d’Ivoire, Kenya Airways, Emirates, and Turkish airlines.
