Middle East airspace closure, death blow on Nigeria’s aviation, revenue – NUATE boss

National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) has expressed concerns over how the airspace closure in some parts of the Middle East would impact airport revenue and Nigeria’s economy. The National President of the Union, Comrade Ben Nnabue told the newsmen in Lagos.

Nnabue said that the conflict between the United States, Is real and Iran was affecting global travel, including flights to Nigeria.

According to him, Nigerians are stranded in Dubai and Qatar and other places due to travel disruptions and altered flight frequencies, which is impacting Nigerian airport revenue.

He noted that peace was desired to resume normal travel and economic activities.

“When the news broke out, we discovered that some Nigerians are also in Dubai, you know we travel a lot, some were in Qatar and are stranded.

“Most importantly, the airlines, every year, when we make budgets in Nigeria, we calculate the frequencies of the airlines, so those frequencies are now altered.

“So, it is affecting the revenue of the airport. The wish is that, let there be peace in the air so that people can travel from one space to another.

“When the planes are not coming to Nigeria, we are losing funds and boosting of our economy will be slowed down within these few days,” Nnabue said.

He added that efforts were ongoing to communicate with Emirates and other airlines for resumption, except Qatar because the airline was not part of the union.

“We hope that the airspace would open up so that foreign airlines from the affected parts of the Middle East could begin to come so that people that plan to go for various businesses can do so.

“Aviation is a global village. One thing that affects one part of the world will also affect the other,” he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that over the weekend, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Iran, Israel, Iraq, Kuwait and Syria closed portions of their airspace after escalating air strikes in Iran.

The consequences of this development would be that flights must reroute, burning more fuel because of additional time spent among other costs