Nigerian-approved Hajj airlines have refused to sign the 2025 pilgrims airlift agreement with the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON).
This newspaper’s findings revealed that the reasons for the refusal include disagreement over currency of payment, pilgrims allocations and rejection of some airlines by some state governors, among others.
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, 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, Mr Khaled Alhejairi, and the Chairman and CEO of National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), Professor Abdullahi Saleh Usman.
After signing the agreement with Flynas on Monday, March 10, the NAHCON chairman told BBC Hausa Service that all the selected airlines have accepted to be paid in Naira — a claim sources within the commission and the airlines said was not correct and misleading.
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.
This newspaper reports that this is not the first time that local airlines have refused to sign airlift agreements with NAHCON. In 2023, for instance, Flynas was the only airline that signed the airlift agreements with NAHCON when the four other local airlines refused to sign, demanding a fare increase over Sudan’s conflict.
Thereafter, the Hajj commission decided to deduct $100 each from the BTA of the 75,000 Nigerian pilgrims and shared it to the four local airlines – Max Air, Air Peace, Azman Air and Aero Contractors.
Flynas, which was the only carrier that saved the day then and signed the agreement despite the conflict in Sudan, was surprisingly excluded from the sharing even though its over 28,000 pilgrims from Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Niger, Zamfara, Sokoto and Kebbi states were affected by the $100 deduction by NAHCON.
The deduction of $2.8 million (28,000 x $100) BTA from Flynas pilgrims to pay the air tickets of pilgrims from other states was the first in the history of Hajj operation in Nigeria. Insiders described it as immoral, fraudulent and un-Islamic.
“What NAHCON should have done was simply to ask the relevant state governors to balance their pilgrims’ airfare. But to deduct the BTA of other pilgrims and pay the air ticket of some pilgrims in other states is simply callous,” he said.
It was gathered that some of the affected pilgrims have since petitioned the EFCC over these deductions. “The $100 BTA deduction is one of the many cases against the Zikirullah Kunle Hassan-led administration pending before the EFCC. So many NAHCON staff members have been invited by the anti-graft agency over the same investigation,” another NAHCON source said.
Alhaji Razak Alamutu, one of the pilgrims affected by the illegal defections, has urged EFCC not to abandon the investigation, saying, “We want our money returned.”
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 autonomous 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 autonomous 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.
This newspaper learned that Niger State Governor Muhammad Umaru Bago had to go to NAHCON on Wednesday, March 11, purposely to protest the deployment of Air Peace to airlift Niger state pilgrims.
Insiders said that though the commission is reportedly trying to micromanage the challenges, it was evident even on Monday during the signing that most of the agreements were not ready as NAHCON officials were seen making frantic efforts to make last minute corrections, among others.
“What transpired on Monday was an icing on the cake of lack of efficiency and administrative capacity of the commission leadership,” one of the staff members observed. Another insider urged President Bola Tinubu to arrest the deteriorating leadership challenge in the commission before it is too late.
It is not clear when these issues would be resolved for the local airlines to sign the agreements.
Nigeria has projected that a total of 71,274 pilgrims will perform this year’s pilgrimage under the state quota.
When contacted on Thursday, Max Air spokesperson Barr Shehu Wada didn’t provide reasons for his airline’s refusal to sign the agreement. He directed our reporter to NAHCON, saying it is the one responsible for the airlift agreement.
“Please, you should ask NAHCON. On Monday, we were all there for the signing, but NAHCON said they would call us the next day, Tuesday. But they never did. We are waiting for them,” Mr Wada said.
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 said those issues have been ironed out, and the local airlines would sign the airlift agreements today (Friday).
