The Civil Aviation Authority of Nigeria has revealed that the country was de-listed from the United States Federal Aviation Administration Category One safety status purely because none of the Nigerian operators were flying into the US and not because of any safety or security concerns. The de-listing was in line with the FAA policy rather than anything else.

No services for over two years

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has removed Nigeria from the agency's Category One safety list, which means none of the Nigerian registered carriers can now perform normal flight operations to the US. However, none of the Nigerian registered carriers have flown to the US in the past four years, and according to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), this was the reason for the country's removal by the FAA.

The New Diplomat reports that the nation was removed because none of the airlines based in Nigeria had operated flights to the United States for over two years.

The FAA has removed countries from the list that have not had any "indigenous" carrier operate services to the US or codeshare with an airline based in the US for over two years, along with countries where the FAA has not interacted with the respective CAA for extended periods of time.

The report further indicates that Nigeria first attained Category One Safety in 2010, after which the country maintained this status during subsequent FAA audits held in 2014 and 2017. It was also reported that Nigeria passed audits conducted by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) without significant safety concerns.

Regaining category one status

Since the country lost its category one safety status, none of the airlines based in the country can currently operate direct flights to the US. However, should any of the airlines wish to restart services to the US in the future, the first thing that has to be done is to get the FAA to perform safety audits and collaborate with the NCAA to have Nigeria reinstated within the FAA's Category One safety list.

To have their status reinstated, the country will have to pass the FAA's International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) done in the country, which includes eight key elements that need to be satisfied:

Other options available

In a hypothetical scenario wherein a Nigerian airline wishes to restart services to the US, the airline does have the option to fly to the US via a third country. While this is possible under ICAO's Freedoms of The Air, it could potentially be complicated to receive approval to perform such flights.

Additionally, the airline would also have to embrace any operational or scheduling challenges that could arise in terms of aircraft utilization and crew duty times.

Realistically speaking, passengers from Nigeria wishing to fly to the US (or the other way around, for that matter) can currently fly either with the limited services offered by Delta Air Lines and United Airlines to Lagos or by connecting through a third country. Within Africa, there are five countries that passengers can use, each with services to the US: