Nigeria Risks Becoming Feeder Market As Foreign Airlines Run 127 Weekly Flights

Nigeria is increasingly being reduced to a feeder market for foreign aviation hubs as foreign airlines continue to tighten their grip on Nigeria’s international aviation market, LEADERSHIP can report.

LEADERSHIP gathered that seven major carriers are operating a combined 127 weekly flights from the Nigeria raising fresh concerns that Africa’s most populous nation is

LEADERSHIP gathered that as of September 2026, seven major carriers are operating a combined 127 weekly flights from the Nigeria raising fresh concerns that Nigeria’s ambition to develop Lagos and other airports into regional aviation hubs continues to face stiff competition from established foreign hubs.

For instance, flight schedules shows that Ethiopian Airlines, Royal Air Maroc, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines, RwandAir, Emirates and Kenya Airways collectively account for about 127 weekly departures from Nigerian airports.

The scale of the operations means hundreds of thousands of Nigerian passengers are being channelled every year through foreign hubs in Addis Ababa, Casablanca, Doha, Istanbul, Kigali, Dubai and Nairobi, rather than connecting through Nigerian airports.

Ethiopian Airlines has emerged as the dominant foreign carrier, with 53 weekly flights to and from Nigeria, significantly ahead of its closest competitors.

The airline’s expanded Nigerian operation covers five airports, with Lagos accounting for 21 weekly flights and Kano 11. It will also commence a new Port Harcourt service on December 1, 2026, with four weekly flights, while maintaining existing operations to Abuja and Enugu.

The 53-flight figure represents Ethiopian Airlines’ total weekly operation to and from Nigeria and should not be interpreted as 53 one-way departures from the country.

Royal Air Maroc operates about 19 weekly departures, comprising 12 Lagos-Casablanca services and seven from Abuja.

Qatar Airways follows with 17 weekly departures, made up of 14 Lagos-Doha flights and three Abuja-Doha services.

Turkish Airlines operates 14 weekly departures, with daily Lagos-Istanbul and Abuja-Istanbul services.

RwandAir operates 11 weekly departures, comprising seven daily Lagos-Kigali services and four weekly Abuja-Kigali flights.

Emirates operates seven weekly departures, with a daily Lagos-Dubai service, while Kenya Airways operates six weekly Lagos-Nairobi flights, following an increase in frequency from July 2026.

However, aviation experts have argued that the expansion has exposed the strategic disadvantage facing Nigeria’s aviation sector.

They argued that while foreign airlines are increasing frequencies and using Nigeria as a major passenger source market, Nigerian carriers have yet to build comparable international networks capable of competing for connecting traffic.

Instead, passengers travelling from Nigeria to destinations across Africa, Europe, Asia and the Middle East are frequently routed through foreign hubs.

Speaking on the development, the managing director of Travelden, a subsidiary of Finchglow Holdings, Gbenga Onitilo, said Nigeria is increasingly at risk of becoming a feeder market for foreign airlines as international carriers expand their operations, capture high-value Nigerian passengers and strengthen overseas aviation hubs at the expense of the country’s own ambition to become a major African aviation centre.

Onitilo said while the expansion would give Nigerian travellers more choice and improve international connectivity, it also exposes a deeper weakness in Nigeria’s aviation strategy, saying the country is generating passengers for foreign hubs without building a network capable of retaining those passengers within its own aviation ecosystem.

According to him, Ethiopian Airlines is not simply selling tickets between Nigeria and Ethiopia, it is using Nigeria as a market to feed its powerful Addis Ababa hub and connect Nigerian passengers to destinations across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

“The passenger from Port Harcourt is not necessarily going to Addis Ababa because Ethiopia is the final destination. Addis is the bridge to the rest of the world,” he said.

He said this network advantage puts foreign carriers in a fundamentally stronger position than most Nigerian airlines, which remain largely trapped in point-to-point domestic operations.

Onitilo warned that the consequences go beyond airline competition, saying as more Nigerian passengers connect through Addis Ababa, Doha, Dubai, Istanbul and other foreign hubs, those airports and their surrounding economies benefit from the spending generated by Nigerian travellers.

“Those hubs become stronger while Nigeria remains largely a spoke,” he said.

He argued that Nigeria must begin asking whether increasing international connectivity is translating into economic value for the country or simply helping foreign airlines build stronger networks.

Every additional international flight, he noted, supports a wider ecosystem involving airport operations, ground handling, catering, aviation fuel, hotels, transportation, travel agencies, corporate travel, tourism and cargo.

The danger, he said, is that Nigeria could provide the passengers while foreign countries capture a disproportionate share of the wider aviation value chain.

Onitilo said, “Look at what Ethiopian is actually building around Nigeria,” he said.

The real concern, he added, is not simply how many foreign airlines operate in Nigeria, but whether Nigeria is developing the capacity to capture the economic value generated by its enormous passenger market.

“The real question is not whether Ethiopian Airlines will benefit from Nigeria. The real question is whether Nigeria will benefit from Ethiopian Airlines.”

“When will Nigeria stop being the market that supplies passengers to other countries’ aviation hubs and start building the aviation ecosystem that makes the world connect through Nigeria?” he asked.

Also speaking, the President of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) Nigeria and Second Vice President of the Aviation Safety Roundtable Initiative (ASRTI), Dr. Alex Nwuba, warned that foreign airlines are increasingly taking advantage of Nigeria’s growing air travel market because domestic carriers lack the capacity and access to capital required to compete.

Nwuba said the expansion of foreign airlines into Nigeria was driven by strong passenger demand, stressing that international carriers would not increase their operations if there were no market for their services.

According to him, Nigeria cannot prevent people from travelling while simultaneously failing to provide sufficient domestic airline capacity to meet the demand.

“The market is there. There is a market we are not tapping into,” Nwuba said, arguing that the solution lies in strengthening the capacity of Nigerian airlines to access capital and compete effectively.

He warned that continued constraints on domestic operators would prevent the industry from scaling, while the demand for air travel would remain.

“If we continue to put constraints on ourselves, we will not scale. Demand will not go away,” he said.

Nwuba said the situation would continue to result in foreign airlines capturing opportunities that should ordinarily support the growth of Nigerian carriers.

He therefore called on the Federal Government and aviation regulators to create an environment capable of attracting capital into the domestic airline industry.

According to him, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had demonstrated that effective regulation could help transform an industry, arguing that the aviation sector could adopt similar measures to encourage stronger and better-capitalised airlines.

“The CBN did it. There is no reason why the Aviation Ministry and the NCAA cannot do it,” he said.

Nwuba noted that Nigeria had developed globally competitive banks because systems were put in place to encourage the sector to attract capital, but lamented that the same approach had not been sufficiently applied to aviation.

He said domestic airlines were struggling to access financing needed to acquire aircraft and expand operations, thereby leaving them unable to compete with well-funded foreign carriers.

Nwuba also dismissed calls for the establishment of a dedicated aviation bank that would provide airlines with single-digit interest-rate loans, describing the proposal as unrealistic.

He argued that an aviation bank would still have to operate as a financial institution and make money, questioning where it would source funds cheaply enough to lend to airlines at single-digit rates.

“A bank is still a bank. It needs to make money,” he said.

Nwuba argued that banks do not simply create funds for lending but raise money from the market and lend at a margin.

“Bankers are in the business of making money on spread. You can’t borrow single digits. Where will you get it to lend?” he asked.

He maintained that creating an aviation bank without addressing the fundamental problems of airline financing, regulation and investment would amount to providing a subsidy rather than solving the structural challenges confronting Nigeria’s domestic aviation industry.

Rather than relying on an aviation bank, Nwuba said the government and regulators should focus on reforms that would make Nigerian airlines attractive to investors and enable them to access sustainable capital.

He warned that failure to do so would allow foreign airlines to continue dominating international traffic generated from Nigeria, while domestic operators remain unable to capture the economic opportunities created by the country’s growing demand for air travel.