France evacuates 260 citizens from Lagos airport over Coronavirus

On Thursday March 26, a total of 260 French citizens were airlifted from Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos to Paris, following an approval given by the Federal Government to a request by the Air France General Manager in Nigeria, Michel Colleau, TopNaija.ng reports.

Colleau had sought for permission for the airline to land in Lagos to evacuate Dutch and French citizens stuck in Nigeria after the closure of all the major international airports to international flights.

The Nigeria Government through the Ministry of Aviation granted the permission for the Air France/KLM flight to operate on the platform of essential flights.

An Air France aircraft came in via Cotonou at 2.05pm today, and with the pre-boarding formalities completed, French nationals boarded the aircraft which took off at about 3.44pm Nigerian time. The evacuation exercise is expected to continue on April 2nd and end on April 9th 2020.

The Airport General Manager in Lagos, Mrs Victoria Shinnaba confirmed that the airline has three special flights to operate.

She said;

“We have one or two flights that will be coming in to pick their nationals, KLM is coming in today, there are three flights not only today, we have the approval, their crew are not even coming down, the crew will not come out at all.”