Luanda – After roughly a year and seven months of delays from operations to Nigeria, TAAG - Angola Airlines resumed, this Thursday (7th), connections between Luanda and Lagos, re-launching trade and tourism between the two countries.
The resumption of flights to Nigeria complies with a vast international repositioning plan of the flag carrier, covering routes such as São Tomé, Kinshasa, Windhoek, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Maputo, Lisbon and São Paulo, after a closed period that began in April 2020, due to restrictions imposed by covid-19.
Unlike the three previous weekly flights, on this return, the company will fly twice a week to the main economic, financial and commercial centre of that African state, on Mondays and Thursdays, with the Boeing 737-700 at night time, observing the entire International Procedures to the Pandemic.
The return of the Angolan aircraft to Nigeria was witnessed by the extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador of Angola to the west African country, Eustáquio Januário Quibato, in a gesture of courtesy, in the company of members of the Diplomatic Mission accredited in that country, says a note to which ANGOP had access.
According to the document issued by the Angolan Embassy in that country, on the occasion, the Angolan diplomat described the decision of the national company as being of strategic importance to boost the commercial, academic and tourist flow between Angola and Nigeria with mutual advantages.
"It is a very positive response to the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding on the Bilateral Airspace Agreement - BASA, signed between Angola and Nigeria," he declared.
Cooperation and trade balance
The Republic of Angola and the Federal Republic of Nigeria have been linked since the process of armed struggle for national independence, and bilateral relations are based on a Framework Agreement that aims to deepen political, socio-economic and cultural cooperation to improve the Bilateral Development Agenda.
The Agreement also envisages broadening the spectrum of collaboration in the fields of trade, investment, oil and gas. In May 2019, they reinforced the need to monitor the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding on the BASA.
In recent years, as a consequence of the 2014 international economic crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2020 trade between the two countries weakened.
Available data indicate that in 2016 exports from Nigeria (a country with a thriving economy that competes side by side with South Africa) to Angola amounted to US $450 million, while in the opposite direction, those from Angola exceeded US $1.56 million.
Nigeria is the largest oil exporter in Africa (11th in the world), its main raw material, followed by Angola. Both States are members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
TAAG started regular flights on the Luanda-Lagos route on November 16, 2019, with two frequencies a week. The first flight was carried out with a Boeing 777-200ER aircraft, occupied by more than 200 passengers, having 14 seats in first class, 51 in business class and 170 in economy class.
At the time, the chairman of the Board of Directors of TAAG, Hélder Preza, highlighted the weight of the Nigerian economy on the continent and the high demographic rate (about 200 million inhabitants), among the main factors behind the opening of the route, which also appears to attract Nigerian investors.
