Coronavirus: Turkish Airlines Cancels Flights to Nigeria

• Coronavirus: Turkish Airlines Cancels Flights to Nigeria

Turkish Airlines on Tuesday announced it has canceled all flight operations to and from Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy.

The airline attributed the development to coronavirus and low traffic as many people stay away after the airline brought the index case into the country on February 25th.

According to a statement issued by the airline, “the cancellations will start for flights originally scheduled to arrive Lagos on March 17, 23 and 29th, and flights for Abuja scheduled for March 13, 16th, 20th, 25th, 27th and April 1, 2020.”

“Flights for Port-Harcourt will not operate on March 11th, 13th, 18th and 25th.”

Turkish airlines like other international air transport companies are struggling with low demands due to rising numbers of coronavirus victims.

The airline said it had to halt flight operations due to low traffic in the country.

A source from the company said in some cases, “we found that only 20 passengers booked and it doesn’t make economic sense to go ahead with such a trip. We had to provide a refund for them and apologised.”

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) had predicted a $113 billion loss for global airlines in 2020 while the association forecast that African airlines would lose an estimated $40 million this year.