Nigerian airlines have been banned from operating flights into the United States after failing to maintain Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Category One safety status.
This is due to the failure of Nigeria’s airlines to operate direct flights to the US for over two years, as required by the International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) Program, published by the FAA on July 15, 2024.
The Flight Standards Service recently adopted a procedure to remove a country from the IASA program summary listing when that country’s air carriers no longer provide air service to the US.
A country is also removed when none of its air carriers participate in codeshare arrangements with US air carriers, and the country’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has ceased interacting with the FAA for a long time.
“It is important to clarify here that the de-listing of Nigeria has absolutely nothing to do with any safety or security deficiency in our oversight system,” the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) said in a statement. “No Nigerian operator has provided service into the United States using a Nigerian registered aircraft within the 2-year period preceding September 2022 so it was expected that Nigeria would be de-listed.”
Accordingly, the removal of Nigerian airlines will prevent carriers from flying directly to the US, meaning that no designated airline from Nigeria can now operate in the US unless through a third country.
Carriers from Category One are permitted to operate into the US and/or codeshare with US air carriers in accordance with Department of Transportation (DOT) authorizations, according to the IASA program.
To qualify for IASA Category One, a country must demonstrate compliance with eight ICAO standards.
Egypt, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Morocco, and South Africa are currently the only African nations certified to have met International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards and their carriers can fly within the US.
