Nigerian authorities have ordered EgyptAir, the only airline still flying into the country's second biggest city, Kano, to close its office there by the end of October, airline officials said Tuesday October 9.
National aviation authorities told the airline to suspend its operations in Kano -- the commercial hub of mainly Muslim northern Nigeria -- by October 30, the airline's manager in Kano, Muwaffaq Mohammed, told AFP.
Mohammed and Kano State government officials expressed concern at the order and a demand that EgyptAir relocate its Kano operation to Lagos, Nigeria's economic capital on the southern coast. In the Lagos office of EgyptAir, company official Roushdy Ehsan said the Nigerian government's order followed a "certain disagreement" between aviation authorities of the two countries.
Egypt and Nigeria needed to clear "some gray areas" in their commercial agreement, he stated. Officials at the ministry of aviation told AFP that EgyptAir was a year late in paying dues to Nigeria regarding its operations in Kano, but declined to disclose the amount involved.
The Egyptian airline had asked for more time to pay the charges, but Nigerian authorities have refused, they said. The only other foreign carriers which had served the Aminu-Kano international airport, British Airways and Royal Dutch airline, KLM, stopped flying to the city last year. They cited poor sales, aviation sources in Lagos said.
Mohammed said: "We were issued a letter by the aviation ministry last week terminating our operations in Kano. We have been asked to move to Lagos with effect from October 30."
"We have maintained a tradition in Kano for the past 30 years and we are really sad over this order," the official said. Rabiu Baba, a top official with the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria in Kano, confirmed the government order. A spokesman of the Kano State government, Ibrahim Ado, said that local authorities were dismayed by the development.
Ado said that the relocation of the airline to Lagos would be bad for business in Kano. Ehsan said that following the development; EgyptAir will increase to two Cairo-Lagos-Cairo flights each week instead of one. He added that efforts were in hand to resolve the disagreement. — (AFP, Kano)
© Agence France Presse
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
