Air Peace Suspends South Africa Flights On Visa Issues, Aviation Fuel

Nigerian airline, Air Peace, has cancelled flights to South Africa following the challenge Nigerians face in securing the country’s visa. This is affecting the company’s revenue generated from the route.

Air Peace stated that the slow process in issuing South African visas to travellers has reduced the number of passengers booking their airline for flights into and out of the country.

“We hereby inform the flying public that effective from August 22, 2022, our Johannesburg flight operations will be suspended till October 8, 2022.” The airline said.

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It added that, “This development is regretted but has become inevitable due to the delayed issuance of South African visas to travellers, worsening forex crunch and the increasing cost of aviation fuel as well as its scarcity.

 

“However, having informed the South African high commission in Lagos of the effects of the difficulty in getting SA visas by Nigerians, which consequence is the abysmally low passenger loads on our flights to and from Johannesburg, we believe that the situation will have improved within the next 60 days. Hence, our willingness to resume operations on the October 8, 2022.”

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Foreign exchange scarcity in Nigeria had worsen since the COVID-19 pandemic forced the aviation industry to shutdown for over three months, and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited failing to remit in the last four years according to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).