The United Arab Emirates may have blinked following the stand-off between her and Nigeria over modalities for PCR tests and rapid test. The country yesterday lifted a travel ban on Nigeria, India and South Africa.
A message from the Dubai Media Office said passengers from Nigeria are expected to have received a negative result for a PCR test taken within 48 hours before departure.
Passengers are also expected to present a negative PCR test certificate with a OR code from laboratories approved by the Nigerian government, while also undergoing the same test upon arrival at the Dubai airport.
On February 1, Emirates Airline had directed that Nigerian travellers at the Lagos and Abuja airports must conduct rapid COVID-19 tests before departure. This led to a ban on Emirates flights in Nigeria.
The ban was lifted after the airline agreed to stop the rapid antigen tests.
But the Federal Government reintroduced the ban on March 15, saying the airline rescinded on the agreement.
On March 25, 2021, the UAE embassy in Abuja announced new COVID-19 travel protocols for Nigeria as measures to curtail the spread of Coronavirus in the country. Passengers, who have been in or transited through South Africa or Nigeria in the last 14 days before travelling to Dubai were barred from entering Dubai.
While Emirates was trying to force the hands of the Nigerian government to accept its rapid test policy, the Nigerian government said it would abide by the agreement extracted from them to suspend the exercise until at a time that the required infrastructure is made available by the Nigerian government.
The UAE had accused Nigeria of lax COVID-19 tests and the procurement of fake COVID-19 certificates which led to spike in coronavirus cases in the UAE; the reason for the introduction of Rapid Antigen Testing (RDT) on intending travelers from Nigeria to Dubai.
The carrier was suspended by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) for taking an action which did not sit well with the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.
Few hours after the suspension, the airline got a reprieve when the suspension was lifted after Emirates backed down.
The airline immediately issued a statement pledging its commitment to the lucrative Dubai-Nigeria route and rallied passengers booked on the flights for February 6 and February 7, 2021 as travelers heaved a sigh of relief that they would eventually be airlifted.
The airline, in a notice to its trade partners on Saturday said: “We wish to inform you that LOS-DXB (EK784) and ABV-DXB (EK786) flights scheduled for Saturday 06 February 2021 have been cancelled due to operational reasons. DXB-LOS (EK783) and DXB-ABV (EK785) will however operate to bring incoming passengers”.
