Travel agents operating in Nigeria say Emirates’ ticket bookings have slowed on the back of the airline’s dollar charges and stringent visa rules by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Emirates recently announced its resumption on October 1 after two years of suspending its services in Nigeria. All fare inventories on the Emirates website are priced in dollars, but prices are competitive when compared with other airlines.
The airline, which airlifts most passengers whose final destination is Dubai, is facing the brunt of effects of dollar charges and a stringent visa regime, as bookings begin to slow, according to travel agents.
Read also: Emirates organises workshop for travel agents ahead of relaunch in Nigeria
“Right now, the bookings are still a bit slow on Emirates to Dubai and onwards. The stringent conditions for visas and the dollarised ticket rates are affecting sales,” Susan Akporaiye, managing director and CEO of Topaz Travels and Tours and former president of the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA), told BusinessDay.
Akporaiye said when the UAE introduced the visa rule, it insisted that visa applications be done using only Emirates tickets, but that has been lifted, allowing people to process their visas using other airlines.
“Currently, it only has to be Emirates tickets if applicants are going for visas at the UAE application centre. If you are doing it through an agent, whether in Nigeria or Dubai, you can now use other airlines’ tickets.
“The fact that tickets are still dollarised is affecting the Emirates’ ticket sales. The sales are very slow, although it is early to judge. Emirates has a promo ticket of $800, but by the time you buy the dollars to get the promo ticket, you will discover that it is over N1 million,” she explained.
She further explained that another reason for the slow sales may be that Emirates has not started selling tickets for flights originating from Abuja.
“The fact that people can’t fly from Abuja is another major reason why ticket sales are slow. It is a major disadvantage for people in Abuja and the north,” Akporaiye said.
She hinted that the slow ticket sales on Emirates may have forced the UAE to relax its visa rules recently by introducing stop-over visas of 48 hours, 72 hours and 96 hours visas for Nigerians with UK, USA and Canadian visas.
“For travellers with UK, USA and Canadian visas, they don’t need to go through much documentation. For instance, if you have a UK visa and you are going to London, they can allow you to stay over in Dubai with stop-over visas for as long as three or four days. These do not require documentation. It is a bit easier to get. This is their own way of trying to improve on the number of Nigerians going to Dubai.
Read also: NAHCO to provide passenger, cargo services for returning Emirates airlines
“This for the UAE. It is the only way to boost tourism. They know that their normal visas are too stringent and would affect the number of Nigerians going to Dubai. By January, 2025, we should have a better overview of the bookings and how Nigerians responded,” she said.
A Nigerian passport holder applicant is expected to provide proof of a six months’ bank statement with a minimum balance of $10,000 (about N16 million) in their account before applying for a UAE visa.
For Nigerian citizens with either valid United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Schengen visas on their passports, the rule may be a bit liberal on them.
Also, Nigerians with the green passports are mandated to provide round-trip flight tickets and proof of hotel bookings before applying for the UAE visa.
Besides, Nigerian applicants are to also obtain a Document Verification Number (DVN), which the UAE says is to authenticate and verify documentation essential for visa applications to the UAE.
The UAE has also unveiled different types of visas for Nigerians with diverse fees, ranging from N150, 000 to N270,000.
Bernard Bankole, the GMD and CEO of Finchglow Holdings, a travel and tour company, told BusinessDay that beyond the dollar charges, a lot of people are still sceptical about the return of Emirates.
Bankole said considering that the federal government announced the Emirates flight resumption several times before the airline finally gave a date, a lot of people have grown sceptical about the commencement of the flights.
“I can tell you that a lot of people are just waiting to see the aircraft land before they finally come to terms with the fact that Emirates has resumed flights.
“Emirates hasn’t been in the market for so long and travellers have moved on to other airlines. People are just watching to see how the market is for now,” he explained.
Read also: Emirates lures passengers with cheap dollar airfares
He also hinted that the stringent visa rules are also affecting Emirates’ bookings, considering that Emirates flies a lot of travellers whose final destination is Dubai.
“With the current stringent visa rules, travellers to Dubai are not able to travel. I believe by the time Emirates realises it is not able to fill the aircraft because of the visa rules, it will work with their government to address the issue,” the Finchglow Holdings CEO said.
A source close to Emirates told BusinessDay that Emirates is very patient and trusts its strong brand.
Before Emirates suspended flight operations into Nigeria, it had the largest frequencies with 14 weekly flights into Lagos.
Emirates carries an average of 350 passengers per flight. For 14 flights from Dubai to Lagos, the airline carries 4,900 passengers. To operate a return flight, the airline carries an average of 9,800 passengers weekly on the Dubai-Lagos route.
Since Emirates suspended flight operations in Nigeria, its 9,800 Lagos passengers have had to jostle for flights on Ethiopian Airlines, Egypt Air, Etihad and Rwanda, which connected passengers to Dubai.
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