Airlines Spend Longer Flight Time across Africa with Closure of Niger’s Airspace

•British Airways flights on Southern Africa destinations disrupted 

•Closure of Niger, Sudan, Libya airspace at huge cost to airlines

Chinedu Eze

Flights to African Destinations and across the continent now take longer time as Niger Republic closed its airspace.

According to flight tracking service provider, FlightRadar24, the closure of Niger’s airspace dramatically widens the area over which most commercial flights between Europe and southern Africa cannot fly, demanding that flights must take a detour of sorts around Libya and Sudan.

With the closure of Niger’s airspace, airlines flying between Europe and southern Africa would need to reroute and add 1000 or more extra kilometers to their flights, increasing the amount of fuel each flight would need and the flight time.

This has led to more costs for airlines because they spend more money on fuel and other logistics and airlines may pay more insurance premium on potential risks.

Industry observers said the closure of Niger’s airspace dramatically widened the area over which most commercial flights between Europe and southern Africa cannot fly.

Reports indicated that on Sunday evening, August 6, when Nigeria closed its airspace, British Airways flight BA56 was scheduled to fly from Johannesburg (JNB) to London (LHR). The flight was operated by an eight-year-old Airbus A380 with the registration code G-XLEI.

The flight was scheduled to depart at 7:20PM local time, and took off at 7:44PM. But it was gathered that for nearly five hours, the aircraft flew to the north, flying over South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, DRC, the Central African Republic, and Chad and then the airline had a problem.

At that point the decision was made to return to Johannesburg and just as it took around five hours to get close to the border of Niger, it took another five hours to return to Johannesburg. The plane ended up landing there at 6:27AM, nearly 11 hours after it had departed.

That’s the same amount of time it ordinarily takes to fly from Johannesburg to London.

There are also fears that Mali may close its airspace and the situation would be worse for international carriers.

Experts averred that the fear of airspace closure by Mali may become apparent if there was any indication that Niger might be attacked.

THISDAY learnt that flights to Nigeria from Europe, the United States now take longer hours. But the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA) said it has no impact in the cost of flight ticket yet.

After a military coup that ousted President Mohamed Bazoum, the ruling junta in the West African country, led by General Abdourahmane Tchiani, closed Niger’s airspace to overflying aircraft. The closure took effect on Sunday evening, when several flights were already airborne.

Meanwhile, THISDAY learnt that insurers have already adjusted their premium for aircraft in response to the  development and this might spike insurance premium for airlines that operate to African destinations and across Africa airspace.

 Reacting to the close of airspace by the Nigerien military junta, the Chairman of Stanbic IBTC, Atedo Peterside, wrote on his Twitter handle: “Burkina Faso and/or Mali join Niger in declining overflight rights to Nigerian bound aircraft, then inbound and outbound flights from Nigeria to Europe will become very expensive.”

This confirmed the fears that the closure of Niger Republic’s airspace would increase the cost of flights from Nigeria to Europe which has already doubled after foreign airlines blocked the lower inventory of tickets due to their inability to repatriate revenues from Nigeria.

Currently, economy tickets for most airlines from Nigeria sell at over N1 million for about six hours flight, while business class tickets sell from over N3 million for the similar hours of flights.

 But the President of NANTA, Susan Akporiaye, said prices have remained the same but that it may change as a result of the crisis in Niger.

“We have not had any spike in prices of international flight tickets at the moment, the only issue we have had and are still having is the spike in cost of flights due to the trapped funds; a serious problem which we have talked about several times and which we have made efforts to solve,” he added.

Meanwhile, Air France it has suspended flights to and from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso and Bamako in Mali until August 11, after Niger’s junta closed its airspace.

 Sudan’s current ban on flights went into effect in late July, but the airspace has been effectively closed since mid-April 2023, when two factions of the country’s military government escalated to armed conflict.

Multiple European countries, including Germany, France, and the UK, as well as the US and Canada, prohibit their civil aircraft from operating in Libyan airspace, which is Tripoli Flight Information Region (FIR).