Federal government has impounded an aircraft belonging to a UK-owned aviation company, Flair, for violating flight ban in Nigeria by operating for commercial purposes.
Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, announced this on his Twitter handle on Sunday, May 17.
According to Sirika, the Flair Aviation was operating a commercial flight as against the Humanitarian operation it was approved for by the country.
The Minister explained that in addition to the confiscated aircraft, a “maximum penalty” would be imposed on the company for the contravention of FG’s ban on commercial flights to check the spread of coronavirus.
COVID-19. Flair Aviation, a UK company, was given approval for humanitarian operations but regrettably we caught them conducting commercial flights. This is callous! The craft is impounded, crew being interrogated. There shall be maximum penalty. Wrong time to try our resolve!🇳🇬
— Hadi Sirika (@hadisirika) May 17, 2020
The Federal government in March announced a ban on all flights in and out of the country as part of measures to prevent air transmission of coronavirus.
On May 6th, Secretary to the government of the federation, Boss Mustapha at the briefing of the presidential task force on COVID-19 announced that ban is extended by another four weeks.
