United will discontinue its lone
flight to Africa on June 29.
The route, which began in 2012,
caters to the oil business and traverses from Houston to Lagos, Nigeria.
The low price of oil is one reason
United has decided to drop the route, spokesman Jonathan Guerin said.
“That has caused some customers to
spend less on their travel,” he said.
Guerin also said that
approximately half of the sales for the route are made in Nigeria, but the
airline has had difficulty converting those Nigerian nairas into dollars and
repatriating them to the U.S. Guerin didn’t provide the reasons for that
difficulty, but according to the Nigerian newspaper Punch, the Central Bank of
Nigeria is restricting the movement of foreign currencies out of the country
because the decline in global oil prices has depleted Nigeria foreign reserves.
Guerin noted that Star
Alliance partner Lufthansa can still transport customers from Houston to Lagos via
Frankfurt.