Nigerian-approved Hajj airlines — Max Air, Air Peace and Umza Aviation Services — have yet to sign the 2025 pilgrims airlift agreement with the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, NAHCON.
On January 15, NAHCON announced the selection of Flynas, Air Peace, Max Air and UMZA Aviation Services Limited as official carriers for the 2025 Hajj operation.
However, it was gathered that only Flynas, a Saudi-designated Nigerian Hajj air carrier, signed the pilgrims airlift agreement with the Hajj commission on Monday, March 10.
The 2025 Hajj pilgrims airlift agreement was signed by the Chief Commercial Officer of Flynas, Khaled Alhejairi, and the Chairman and CEO of NAHCON, Prof. Abdullahi Saleh Usman.
However, findings by this newspaper have shown that as of Friday afternoon, March 14, the three Nigerian airlines have not yet signed the 2025 airlift agreements with NAHCON.
The reasons for their refusal, it was gathered, included disagreement over currency of payment, pilgrims allocations and rejection of some airlines by some state governors, among others.
Insiders are worried that this delay of not tidying up the agreement issue with the local airlines may affect the Hajj operation because Nigeria had already announced that it would begin sending its pilgrims to Saudi Arabia by May 5.
Findings by this newspaper have shown that the delay in the local airlines signing the agreement would deny them the opportunity to secure favorable landing slots in Madinah airport.
For instance, Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) portal for submission of Hajj flight requests has been open since October 6, 2024 – more than six months ago. However, no Nigerian local airlines have submitted a request, even though the closing deadline is about a month away — April 28, 2025.
Aviation experts say the delay in acquiring GACA slots may bar the local airlines from getting good slots that would enable it transport all its pilgrims directly to Madinah airport, thereby reigniting the now rested controversy of Miqat (a designated boundary where Muslim pilgrims must enter the state of ihram).
This newspaper reports that between 2015 and 2019, Nigeria, for the first time, achieved a 100 percent feat of transporting its pilgrims to Madinah before Arafat, thereby ending the squabbles over Miqat.
It was also found out that the three other airlines have failed to sign the airlift agreement over a series of disagreements with the commission.
Insiders said Flynas, with 22, 893 pilgrims, would be paid in its home country’s local currency — Saudi Riyal — contrary to Mr Usman’s claims in the BBC interview.
Insiders said the NAHCON chairman’s decision to pay Flynas in Saudi Riyal is laughable and fiscally impossible because Nigeria doesn’t have a currency swap agreement with the kingdom.
“This also exposes the NAHCON leadership’s poor understanding of basic economics. The CBN can’t give Flynas riyal. It has to convert dollar to Riyal to pay the airline according to prevailing exchange rate. Therefore, the saving he claims Nigeria would make from it is a hoax,” an insider in the commission said.
Again, Max Air, it was learned, has refused to accept payment in Naira — the major reason why it declined to sign the airlift agreement. The commission has allocated 23,342 pilgrims to the airline.
Another airline, the Air Peace, has refrained from signing the airlift agreement over the number of pilgrims allocated to it.
The commission has allocated 9,145 to Air Peace. The airline complained that Umza Aviation Services — a new airline with small aircraft — was allocated 15,893 pilgrims, nearly double the Air Peace’s even though it has wide body aircraft.
Some officials of the local airlines who spoke to this newspaper in confidence said the NAHCON decision was not well-thought off.
“The naira payment model is ill-conceived by NAHCON. Even though we operate in Nigeria, but our expenses are U.S-dollar based,” one of the local airline’s officials who declined being named for fear of a backlash said.
The official said all their payments are in dollars with the exception of taxes to NCAA, FAAN, and other Nigerian federal agencies.
“We pay for the aircraft maintenance, spare parts, royalties to GACA, fueling in Saudi Arabia, crews salaries, all in foreign currencies,” the official said.
Another official said paying airlines in Naira to source their forex in the black market is economically self-destructive because it would reverse the gains Nigeria has achieved so far in the foreign exchange ecosystem under President Bola Tinubu.
“By the time the airlines take their Naira to the black market in exchange for dollars, they would put pressure on the naira. The Naira may crash and the scarcity of the dollar would return. These are some of the negative implications the NAHCON policy would have on the economy,” another official said.
An official of the commission said NAHCON has a better way of handling the exchange rate fluctuation — the major reason behind the introduction of the naira payment system.
The staff said the NAHCON leadership can solve this problem by, “adopting the Barr Abdullahi Mukhtar’s model of collecting the dollar from the CBN and blocking it into an account.
“The commission access it only when it wants to pay the airlines. That is what he did during his tenure as NAHCON chairman. This solves the problem of exchange rate fluctuations.”
Another problem delaying the signing of the airlift agreement was the protests by some state governors who rejected Air Peace scheduled to airlift their pilgrims.
The governors said the airline performed woefully in the last two years by deploying smaller aircraft, among other operational challenges.
However, NAHCON spokesperson, Fatima Sanda-Usara, in her reaction on Friday, said the local airlines didn’t sign because of some issues that are “now being holistically addressed”.
She said some of these issues include the number of pilgrims allocated to the airlines and the rejection of Air Peace by some states.
Mrs Usara added those issues have been ironed out, and the local airlines would sign the airlift agreements today (Friday).
