Turkish Airlines may suspend flight to Kano

There is disquiet in the aviation industry over the decision of some foreign airlines to reduce their operations in Nigeria.

Emirates Airlines and Kenya Airways announced on Monday that they would suspend flight to Abuja, the nation’s capital effective from October 30 and November 5 respectively.

But sources told Daily Trust yesterday that Turkish Airlines will soon suspend its flight operations to Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport (MAKIA), Kano.

An industry player, however said the airline operators were suspending their flights to Abuja and Kano due to dwindling passenger traffic which has made the routes commercially unviable.

Mr Bernard Bankole, the president of National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA), in a chat with Daily Trust also said apart from the drop in passengers, the runway at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja “is also faulty which explains why foreign airlines are avoiding it.”

The airlines are being proactive to prevent accident, he added.

According to the NANTA boss, the issue was no longer about foreign airlines being unable to repatriate their funds.

He said: “It is not commercially viable for them in Abuja and that is why they are moving out coupled with our faulty runway.

The runway in Abuja is bad, we have been making so much noise about that and they don’t want to wait till there is an accident. The runway is faulty. Yes it is not commercially viable coupled with faulty runway”.

Bankole pointed out that the development is a bad omen for the nation.

But another aviation professional, Comrade Razaq Saidu, said government should not succumb to threats by foreign airlines to leave the country.

According to him, the current developments in the sector point to the exigency of having a national carrier that would not only compete with the foreign carriers but reciprocate most of the country’s Bilateral Air Service Agreements (BASAs).

Efforts to speak with Turkish Airlines proved abortive as the airline did not respond to the enquiry sent by our correspondent as of the time of filing this report yesterday.

Meanwhile, Emirates Airlines in a statement on Tuesday confirmed it was suspending its flights from Abuja to Dubai with effect from October 30.