Nigerian airlines reject Yamoussoukro Declaration implementation

Captain Nogie Meggison

NIGERIAN airline operators have declared their opposition to the move to implement the Yamoussoukro Declaration (YD) stating that the implementation is tantamount to the total demise of Nigerian airlines especially with the inherent challenges the airlines currently face.

This is just as African governments, airlines and other stakeholders have been charged to adopt and implement the Yamoussoukro Declaration (YD) as a means to curb the excessive incursion of mega carriers from Europe and the Middle East especially with the carting away of over 80 per cent of the market from the continent.

These divergent positions were made known at a one-day sensitisation workshop on Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) at the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) Annex with the theme: Implementation of SAATM: Its impact on the Nigerian Aviation Industry and National Economy” where industry regulators urged airlines and government to get onboard with the initiative or risk losing out on the long run.

Setting the tone for the workshop, Chairman, Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), Captain Noggie Meggison, said the airlines were not carried along by the African government before going ahead to sign off on the the declaration’s implementation without putting in place facilities to aid domestic airlines to compete.

Meggison questioned if the country was actually ready for the intra-African open skies and what the benefits are especially since the AON feels the playing field is not level and is skewed against Nigerian carriers with regards to how their neighbours tax and charge them.

While the Chief Executive of WestLink Airline, Captain Ibrahim Mshelia, commended the idea of open skies, he however, maintained that the airlines needed more preparation to be part of the benefit from the the single air transport market.

However, Secretary General of the African Civil Aviation Council (AFCAC), Ms Iyabo Sosina who reacted to the statements of the AON stated that the position of the airline body had not changed in over 20years and respectfully added that the issues the airlines mentioned were purely domestic issues and had nothing to do with the the YD.

“As we are aware, the better connected a country is by air, the greater its ability to unlock the economic and social benefits that air transport can deliver through mobility of people and goods to the traveling public, air carriers, airports, other allied service providers, the economy of member states and the continent as a whole.”