Travel News

Some Nigerians who travelled to Dubai were detained at the airport and their passports seized.

Few others were seen demanding answers after their passports were seized without explanation.

Others are seen sitting in an empty area as they waited to know their fate.

One of the persons here who shared the video revealed that her sister later picked her up from immigration after a “tedious process” but other Nigerians who didn’t have anyone in the country were not released.

A significant number of airplanes operating across the country are currently grounded due to the crisis rocking Nigeria’s aviation sector, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority has said.

Director-General, NCAA, Musa Nuhu, who disclosed this at a stakeholders meeting in Abuja on Wednesday, said the fleet of aircraft were grounded until their owners carried out adequate maintenance on them.

Nuhu’s statement confirmed the report released on June 30, 2022 by Ch-aviation, a global agency with database of airlines in the world, that only 44 aircraft were operating in Nigeria, while 79 were grounded at the time.

In his address at the stakeholders event, the NCAA boss stated that issues around inaccessibility of foreign exchange, hike in aviation fuel and the devaluation of the naira had worsened the fortunes of airlines and agencies in the sector.

He stated that the ongoing audit of airlines and other players in the sector by NCAA showed the precarious financial state of businesses in the industry.

Nuhu said, “When I say the industry, it also includes the agencies in the sector. We also suffer from the same issues you (airlines) suffer. Issues of revenue, foreign exchange, we all suffer.

“The NCAA has started the process of conducting the financial performance and status audits of the industry, starting with the airlines and we’ve done five so far and it makes us get the very best picture.

“We can see the difficulties and the challenges the airlines are having. We are all aware of the astronomical increase in the cost of JetA1 (aviation fuel). The international price is increasing, at the same time the naira is devalued. So it is double jeopardy.”

He added, “Even the foreign exchange is not readily available and the airlines are facing difficulties in getting it to do their transactions for trainings, maintenance, spare parts, etc.

“So a significant number of fleet in Nigeria is grounded, awaiting maintenance. We are all aware and we are not insensitive to the position of the industry.”

The NCAA helmsman noted that based on these challenges, the aviation agencies, especially the civil aviation authority, had been very flexible with the operators in order to get across the prevalent difficult situation in the sector.

Nuhu, however, stressed that the crisis in the sector would not be allowed to tamper with aviation safety measures that must be upheld by all airlines.

“It is important that this financial difficulties that the airlines are facing and have been managing have not translated into technical and safety issues,” he stated.

“We have seen a bit of the trend and it is quite worrisome and we must put an immediate stop to them. That is why we have been discussing and giving some sort of waivers to the industry so that we can cope with this.”

DUBAI, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Emirates will resume some flights to Nigeria this month after the Central Bank of Nigeria released a portion funds the Dubai airline had earned in the country but had not been able to repatriate.

An airline spokesperson said flights to Lagos will resume from Sept. 11, though it is not possible to resume flights to Abuja in September because resources had already been stood down.

"We continue to engage with the Nigerian authorities to ensure the repatriation of our outstanding and future funds may continue without hindrance," the spokesperson said, welcoming what it said was the central bank's move to release a portion of its blocked funds.

Advertisement · Scroll to continueReport an ad

The airline did not say how much money had been released or how much remained blocked.

The state-owned carrier last month announced it was suspending all flights to Nigeria from Sept. 1 after it said it had made no progress with local authorities to access its funds.

Nigeria's Central Bank later said it had released $265 million to airlines to settle outstanding ticket sales.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA), the largest airline group, had said that by July Nigeria was blocking airlines from repatriating $464 million in revenue.

by  Brunno Braga

Delta Air Lines announced this past Monday that it is suspending its flights to Nigeria from New York over continuing concerns over its ability to repatriate money currently locked in this African nation. The airline says that it cannot afford to continue operating this route without receiving payment from the return trip from Lagos to JFK. With operating costs increasing, this profitless flight costs the airline more and more every month. The route will enter its temporary suspension on October 4th.

“Delta is suspending its nonstop service between New York-JFK and Lagos to fit the current demand environment,” Delta said in an official statement.

The Atlanta-based airline however said that it continues to operate flights to Nigeria from Atlanta and offers onward connections to New York and other cities across the United States.

“Customers impacted by our suspended New York-JFK to Lagos service will be re-accommodated on Delta -operated flights or services operated by our joint venture partners. Delta remains committed to the Nigeria market.”

Delta also informed that it will no longer accept the Nigerian naira. All tickets between the USA and Nigeria will be sold in USD only and only available via online booking so that the money does not remain trapped in Nigeria.

The Nigerian government has not responded specifically to the service suspension but has claimed it does not have sufficient foreign currency reserves for airlines to withdraw.

In fact, other carriers such as Emirates and British Airways operating in Nigeria had previously expressed concern that large sums were being held up in the country due to the inability to access repatriation funds. In order to meet the demand from international airlines, the Central Bank of Nigeria released 265 million dollars to settle outstanding ticket sales, the monetary authority confirmed in a resolution issued this month. However, this amount of money is only half of what airlines have been able to remove from the country.

Bosses at Jet2 have said that cash-conscious consumers turning to package holidays during tough times could bring in more customers.

Package holiday customers made up a significantly higher proportion of total departing passengers in summer 2022, up by 13 percentage points compared with summer 2019, the low-cost airline said.

It also reported that it has a strong winter ahead, with forward bookings matching levels in the same period in 2019.

- ADVERTISEMENT -

The airline told shareholders it is on track to meet market expectations in terms of its yearly profits.

This is despite the business warning of pressure on its margins in the short term as a result of economic uncertainty and recent travel disruption.

Executive chairman Philip Meeson told Jet2’s annual general meeting on Thursday he is very confident that people will opt for package holidays in an effort to cut costs on their trips away.

He added that, amid the current climate of cash-strapped households, there will be more opportunities for the airline to grow its customer base.

Mr Meeson was also optimistic of travel disruption easing after a fraught summer of flight delays and cancellations, and baggage handling problems causing huge pile-ups at London airports.

In July, Jet2 criticised the chaos, describing airports and suppliers as “woe-fully ill-prepared and poorly resourced”.

At Thursday’s AGM, Mr Meeson referred again to the lack of oversight leading to the widespread disruption.

“Pleasingly, the difficult return to normal operations experienced in early summer 2022 due to the lack of planning and investment by many airports and associated suppliers has abated significantly,” he said.

In its latest trading update, the group said it was operating at a £323.9 million loss in the year to March 31, though this had narrowed by about £12 million compared with the previous year.

Jet2 is due to report its next interim company results on November 24.

There are a lot of misconceptions about why they risk their lives to cross the English Channel instead of staying in the first country they arrive in. While some people will try to settle in Greece, Italy or Hungary, others decide to move on to France, Sweden or the UK for a wide range of reasons.

Asylum seekers who attempted the crossing of the English Channel from France arrive at Dover on board a lifeboat on June 14, 2022 in Dover, England© Getty Images

Charity Care4Calais has been supporting refugees living in Britain, Northern France and Belgium for years by providing warm clothing, bedding, food and medical assistance to people in desperate need. With refugees being forced to flee their countries due to war or persecution, the charity wants people to ask themselves: “If I had to suddenly leave home and everything behind me tomorrow, arriving in a new country without shelter and without work, which country would I go to and why?”

In a video posted on its Facebook page, the charity has tried to explain to the general public how refugees and asylum seekers end up crossing the English Channel. It describes the journey of 100 people who arrived in Europe after surviving the Mediterranean crossing and arriving in Italy.

READ MORE: Herne Bay’s Masala Bay named south east's best takeaway at English Curry Awards

It says: “10 immediately claim asylum. After all Italy is the first safe European country they reach. But Italy, struggling with handling the crisis almost alone, has become increasingly hostile to refugees.

“So the rest head north, they soon split into two groups. 65 head north-east, mostly aiming to reach Germany or Sweden.”

In the middle of 2021, Germany reported almost 1.24 million refugees and 233 000 asylum seekers, making it the biggest host country for refugees in Europe. In comparison, there were 135,912 refugees and 83,489 pending asylum cases in the UK as of mid-2021.

'Why does everyone want to come here?'

The video continues: “The remaining group of 25 people head northwest to France and the UK, and almost all have some connection to these countries through either language or family.

The Best Men's Shoes for Walking and Standing All DayAd
Wmshoe Shoes

“Of those 25, on average 20 will make their asylum claim in France, and that leaves just five who walk on towards Calais. Three of them have relatives in the UK and want to rebuild their lives with their help. The fourth person’s an architect. He speaks excellent English and fears going anywhere else would mean giving up his life’s work.

“The fifth worked as a translator for the British Army in Afghanistan. He had been promised protection in return for service but then the British army left with the Taliban taking their place and threatening his life. That’s why he’s here at our doorstep.

“But what do we see from the UK side? We see five people knocking on the door and not the other 95 dispersed around Europe - and so we ask, why does everyone want to come here?”

BY  Neil Lancefield, PA Transport Correspondent

German airline Lufthansa has cancelled around 800 flights on Friday – including dozens serving the UK – due to a pilots’ strike.

Around 7,000 passengers booked on the carrier’s UK flights will be disrupted.

All 34 of Lufthansa’s services connecting Heathrow with Frankfurt and Munich are grounded, in addition to 11 flights between Manchester and Germany.

Affected passengers are entitled to be flown to their final destination as soon as possible.

They may also be entitled to compensation, as consumer groups do not believe cancellations due to strikes by airline employees fall under the “extraordinary circumstances” exemption.

Vereinigung Cockpit (VC), a trade union representing Lufthansa’s pilots, announced the walkout on Thursday in a row over pay.

It accused bosses of failing to improve on their previous proposal.

Matthias Baier, a spokesman for the union, said: “Aware of our responsibility for companies and guests, we wanted to leave no stone unturned and offered another negotiation date despite an inadequate offer and failed negotiations.

“We did not receive a sufficient offer today either. This is sobering and a missed opportunity.

“The negotiations have failed.

“The only thing left for us to do is to reinforce our demands with a labour dispute.”

Lufthansa said it has offered to raise pilots’ monthly base salaries by 900 euros (£777), and claimed the union’s demands would “would increase payroll costs by more than 40%”.

The airline’s labour director Michael Niggemann said: “We cannot understand VC’s call for a strike.

“The management has made a very good and socially balanced offer – despite the continuing burdens of the Covid crisis and uncertain prospects for the global economy.

“This escalation comes at the expense of many thousands of customers.”

The Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) said poor salaries and a lack of a conducive working environment forced many medical doctors and health workers to leave Nigeria for other countries with better remuneration.

NMA National President, Dr Uche Ojinmah stated this in an interview with newsmen on Thursday during the opening ceremony of the 2022 National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the association held in Gombe.

He said doctors in Nigeria are underpaid and lack the basic equipment and conducive environment to work, hence they choose to leave the country for greener pastures, a development that causes the shortage of manpower in the country’s health sector.

Dr Ojinmah also decried the underfunding of the healthcare facilities by the Nigerian government, decrying that the country is yet to implement the 2001 Abuja declaration that recommended the allocation of 15 per cent of the budget to the health sector.

“In 2001, all the heads of states in Africa gathered in Abuja and held a meeting on how to improve the health sector. And at the end, they had a declaration that 15 per cent of the annual budget of every nation should be dedicated to health care.

“Unfortunately, since that time, Nigeria, the country that hosted the meeting could not implement that declaration. So, it is obvious that they know what to do to make it better, but maybe for political reasons, they are not,” he decried.

Dr Ojinmah noted that in order to improve health indices in the country, there was the need for government to increase funding for the health sector through the provision of equipment and adequate manpower in all the health facilities across the country.

He also emphasised the need for medical personnel to be well remunerated and provided with a conducive environment to practice their profession, “So as to reduce the massive brain drain that has hit the medical profession.”

The NMA president added that the association was disturbed over the activities of quacks among medical doctors, saying the association was collaborating with directors of medical facilities to rid the health sector of quackery.

BY  Antony Sguazzin, Bloomberg News

(Bloomberg) -- African men, as well their descendants, are more than twice as likely to die from prostate cancer because of their genetic makeup, two studies released this week show. 

The research, published in the journals Nature and Genome Medicine, found that the DNA of African men is more predisposed to the presence of so-called structural variation, putting them at increased risk of severe forms of the cancer.

This helps explain why a man in sub-Sharan Africa is 2.7 more times likely to die of prostate cancer than the global average and may be the first cancer genome resource of its kind to include African data, researchers from the University of Sydney and the University of Pretoria said. 

“Our understanding of prostate cancer has been severely limited by a research focus on Western populations,” said Vanessa Hayes, a genomicist at the University of Sydney. This study has “significant implications for ancestral consideration when managing and treating prostate cancer.”

More than two million cancer-specific genomic variants were identified in 183 untreated prostate tumors from men living across Australia, Brazil and South Africa, according to the study. 

“Through African inclusion, we have made the first steps not only toward globalizing precision medicine, but ultimately to reducing the impact of prostate cancer mortality across rural Africa,” said Riana Bornman, a professor at the University of Pretoria and clinical lead of the study in South Africa.

(Bloomberg) -- China extended its lockdown in districts of western megacity Chengdu and ordered more mass testing there from Sunday as it tries to contain a Covid outbreak.

Chengdu’s central Jinjiang district will further intensify lockdowns and extend control measures for at least three days starting Sunday, authorities said in a statement. Other districts also announced a third round of Covid tests on Sunday. People should return home immediately after being tested, the officials said. 

Chengdu’s lockdown, which started Thursday, demonstrates China’s commitment to its Covid Zero approach despite the huge economic loss it has triggered. The nation’s sixth-largest city is the biggest to be closed off since Shanghai on June 1 ended two months of curbs on people’s movement, the effects of which are still being felt by businesses.

Chengdu Fears Shanghai Repeat in Pursuit of Xi’s Covid Zero

Demand in Shanghai for everything from dining out to movies and tourism are still far below pre-lockdown levels, while some indicators show the city is taking longer to recover than Hong Kong and Singapore where rules have been eased. Retail sales in the city dropped 4.3% in June from a year earlier and rose a meager 0.3% in July, following an average 35% slump in the preceding three months starting March, when the outbreak began. 

Nationwide, China reported 1,673 local Covid cases for Saturday, including 1,359 that are asymptomatic. Tibet found the most cases among all provinces, with 556 new infections detected, according to the National Health Commission. Sichuan province, home to Chengdu, reported 186. 

Southern technology hub Shenzhen reported 89 new cases. Daily new infections in the coming few days are expected to remain at elevated levels, local health authorities said at a Saturday briefing. Beijing and Shanghai found only one case each. 

Tianjin, the northern port hub near Beijing, shut dine-in service in one district after finding 22 new cases for Saturday. The city started mass testing its 13.7 million residents from Sunday. 

A’ba state, home to some 815,000 people in Sichuan province, implemented a lockdown to its 13 counties on Sunday. The restrictions will last for at least four days,  local authorities said in a statement.

Daqing city in northeastern China’s Heilongjiang province extended a lockdown in its main urban areas by five days from Sunday to contain the spread of Covid, according to a local government statement. These areas were earlier on a seven-day temporary lockdown from Aug. 28.

(Updated with lockdown in Daqing city in last paragraph)