Ethiopian Airlines is among the international carriers that will receive portions of the $61 million recently disbursed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to resolve longstanding foreign exchange backlogs.
The Ethiopian carrier is one of the airlines that has struggled with accumulating ticket revenues trapped in Nigeria due to forex illiquidity issues. It will now have access to some of the $61 million released by the CBN through Nigerian banks to clear such backlogs.
The CBN, in a statement by Hakama Sidi Ali, its Acting Director of Corporate Communications, said the funds are part of over $2 billion that the central bank has moved to clear from airline forex backlogs in the past three months alone.
The allocation provides much needed relief to Ethiopian Airlines and others that have found it difficult to access funds stuck in the Nigerian market.
The International Air Transport Association recently warned that blocked payments could force airlines like Ethiopian Airlines to depart the Nigerian market if the issue was not swiftly resolved.
The CBN's intervention aims to ease liquidity pressure on carriers and boost confidence in the economy.