Nigeria fines British company for flouting flight ban

Nigeria has fined British aviation company Flairjet after its plane contravened a ban on commercial flights imposed to prevent the spread of coronavirus, the aviation minister has said.

The FlairJet plane was impounded on 17 May for carrying passengers despite only having approval for humanitarian operations.

The West African country has banned passenger flights into the country, except those repatriating Nigerian citizens or evacuating foreign nationals.

Minister Hadi Sirika said on Twitter the company was fined for violating civil aviation regulations and had been reported to the UK Civil Aviation Authority.

Flairjet were found to violate our Civil Aviation Regulations IS 1.3.3(a) Table 2(IV)7(a) and IS 1.3.3 (a) Table 2(VIII)(4). The maximum penalty for each is N500,000:00K. We caused them to pay and reported their callous misdemeanor to UK CAA, MFA and the UK High Commission.??????????????

— Hadi Sirika (@hadisirika) May 24, 2020