Updated: Nigeria impounds aircraft of UK’s Flairjet

Nigeria has impounded an aircraft belonging to FlairJet, said to be a UK based aviation company.

The company’s plane was seized after it was found operating a commercial flight to Nigeria.

This contradicted the approval granted the airline to operate humanitarian flights.

Nigeria banned commercial flights in March as part of measures to curb the coronavirus pandemic.

Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika, confirmed the seizure on his official twitter handle.

He said the crew of the flight are also being interrogated.

He promised maximum penalty for the offence.

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

Although Sirika named the rogue airline as Flair Aviation, James Oduadu, aviation ministry spokesman, clarified that the plane was operated by a company called FlairJet.

FlairJet, a British private charter company that is an affiliate of Flexjet, in a statement said the matter was an “evolving situation”.

“We are continuing to respectfully work with the Nigerian authorities to resolve this situation,” it said.