The Federal Government has said that Emirates Airline will soon resume its flight operations in and out of Nigeria as the outcome of its ongoing discussion with the government will be made public within the next 48 hours.

Director-General of Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Musa Nuhu, disclosed this while speaking at the national briefing of the Presidential Steering Committee (PSC) on Covid-19 in Abuja.

As regards the issue of Emirates Airline’s resumption of flights to Nigeria, the PSC deliberated extensively on this matter and the gap has been significantly closed between the position of Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE),” Nuhu said.

This is coming after the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, had allegedly refused to approve the resumption of flight operations to Lagos and Abuja for Emirates Airline due to the insistence of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that only the Middle East airline would be allowed to operate to Dubai from Nigeria.

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Recall,  it was reported that the Federal Government had directed the immediate suspension of outbound flights of Emirates Airline for 72 hours with effect from February 4, until when the needed infrastructure and logistics were put in place for the Rapid Antigen Test (RDT) test by the Nigerian Government.

This followed accusations against the airline, that it was airlifting passengers from Nigeria using RDT done in laboratories that were not approved by regulatory authorities.

The Federal Government had, in March 2021, banned the airline from operating in the country over its continuous refusal to fly passengers without a pre-boarding rapid diagnostic test (RDTs).