The Federal Government says it will reciprocate travel restrictions by countries that have not opened their airspace to Nigeria.
This was disclosed by the minister of aviation, Hadi Sirika, on Thursday, who was represented by Musa Nuhu, Director-General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) at the briefing of the presidential task force on COVID-19.
He said countries in the European Union will be affected.
“On the list of countries (that are banned), we are working on the comprehensive list, but the main one that came up is when the EU opened their borders effective 1st July, Nigeria was among the list of 54 countries that were not allowed to enter the EU,” he said.
“To my understanding, as the situation changes, they are going to look at the list and change it. But so far, we don’t have any contrary information to that first one that Nigeria is banned from going to the EU.
“So, as we open our airspace, we are going to apply the issue of reciprocity to those (EU) countries.”
The minister said to ensure safe operations, a few international flights will be allowed at the onset of international flights resumption, so as to enforce COVID-19 protocols.
He further said that for the meantime, the number of inbound international passengers will be limited to 1,280.
Nigeria would open its international airspace to international flights, strictly to Lagos and Abuja airports on August 29.
