After years of operating a daily route from Houston to Lagos, United
Airlines will stop flying to Nigeria next month. Their last fight will
be on June 30th, ending the airline's only route to Africa. They
confirmed this to a twitter user who asked them if it was true.
According to reports, United Airlines is ending their flights to Nigeria
for two major reasons asides the one they mentioned above.
1, the weakness in the energy sector in Nigeria and
2. they (and other airlines) have been having difficulties collecting
money from airline tickets sold in Nigeria.
Nigeria in the last few months have restricted the amount of money that
can be moved abroad after the global slump in oil
prices depleted our dollar reserve. Nigeria owed airlines about $575
million in air fares as of March 31, according to the International Air
Transport Association.
United is not the first airline to end it's route to Nigeria. British
Airways had also allegedly threatened to stop flying to Nigeria if
something is not done about their money being stuck here.
Delta Airlines will now be the only major U.S. carrier flying to Africa.
United Airlines closing shop here means a lot of Nigerians will lose their jobs. Quite sad!
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