RECENTLY, the Nigeria’s airline operators under the aegis of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) paid a solidarity visit to the Minister of aviation and aerospace development, Festus Keyamo to pledge their commitment to work with him.
During the visit, the AON seized the opportunity to list their challenges and urged the minister to come to their aid.
The minister in his response acknowledged the importance of the operators to the air transport sector and promised to work with them.
The minister who expressed his readiness to work with the operators, however said his support will not be served on a la carte basis as they have to meet up with their own part of the deal of moving the sector particularly the domestic airline scene forward.
The minister in his submission at the parley with the operators promised to look into the over 100 Bilateral Air Service Agreements (BASAs) Nigeria signed with different countries around the world, even as he maintained that the AON needed to renew their fleets to encourage passengers’ patronage and comfort.
The promise to review the BASAs is a welcome development based on obvious facts.
in view of the many years of calls from the different stakeholders on the subsequent governments to review the BASAs, most of which have been adjudged to be lopsided to the disadvantage of Nigeria.
While almost 90 percent of the existing agreements have been signed with little or no benefit to Nigeria, majority of the foreign countries are reaping seriously from the loopholes in the agreements.
While there are over 50 foreign airlines flying into Nigeria using the agreements between Nigeria and their home countries, only one or two are reciprocating from the Nigeria side under severe hostilities in total disregard to the agreements.
Without doubt, the issue of the BASA review has been long overdue in view of the huge financial losses through capital flights and the negative impact the agreements have on the country and the domestic airlines.
Therefore, in reviewing the agreements, the minister would have written his name in gold as the only one of all the ministers that saw the need to correct the unbalanced trade agreements through where many of the foreign countries have been using to short change the country.
In reviewing the BASAs, the minister needs to be wary of the officials in charge of BASA negotiations at the ministry, as many of them are responsible either for signing the agreements due to lack of competency or for personal gains.
It is on record that some of the officials had at one time or the other colluded with the foreign countries to underrepresent Nigeria during such negotiations for pecuniary gains.
The unscrupulous attitude of some of these officials was once confirmed by a former minister of aviation who revealed how some of these ministry officials often grant frequencies to foreign airlines without the knowledge of some ministers for selfish gains. Though he promised to reveal their names, unfortunately he never did so until he left office.
For the minister to be able to carry out an unbiased review of the existing BASAs, he will need to beam his searchlight on even either the officials at the BASA directorate as it seemed that some of them are out of tunes withheld role of BASA negotiations or that they have been compromised.
While no one is begrudging the foreign airlines and their countries for exploring the opportunities created by the lopsided loopholes.However,it hasbecome imperative for the aviationminister as the country’s representative to ensure that the agreement is not only reviewed,but alsonegotiated to benefit Nigeria.
There is the need for many of these countries in line with the agreements to also support any Nigerian airline designated to their countries just as their own airlines enjoy the red carpet treatment here.
Henceforth, the relevant officials that will be involved in negotiating trade agreements on behalf of Nigeria should be those with trusted competence and well grounded on the business of BASA negotiations.
Above all, the rush to continue to sign more BASAs when majority of the existing ones have not being utilisd to the advantage of Nigeria will only continue to put the country and its domestic airlines at the disadvantage position.
and then