By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The Federal Government of Nigeria is empowering the country’s aviation industry to have a direct access to International routes to the United States and South American countries, the country’s Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development has hinted.
Festus Keyamo, formerly of the Ministry of State Labour and Employment said if this is achieved in coming days, it would spur competition and reduce the cost of flight tickets to destination countries.
Heritage Times HT reports that Keyamo, a senior lawyer and activist has repeatedly expressed concern about how the aviation industry in Nigeria is being marginalized in global space.
In reaction to allegation of safety violations against local carrier, Air Peace at Gatwick Airport by UK Civil Aviation Authority (UK CAA) barely after a month it commenced direct flight to Britain, Keyamo expressed solidarity with Air Peace with assurance that the federal government will remain committed to safety of operations of all Nigerian flag carriers.
“BASA are negotiated between different sovereigns. So it is when you get your BASA and your reciprocal rights, you can now give it to your local operators and ensure that they are enforced as per the foreign entities. So we did that; we wrote several letters; we travelled back and forth because we knew that that was what we could use to bring down prices. The only thing that can bring down prices in any market is competition. It is not a monopoly”, the Minister said in a YouTube interview on Saturday monitored by our correspondent.
“British Airways have enjoyed those routes for so many years unchallenged. There were attempts by local airlines in the past to run the routes, but they muscled them out of the routes. That was why Nigerians were buying tickets for as much as N15m to N16m at some points, business class tickets just for to and fro. So we saw that this was an issue we could easily resolve.
“So we put our foot on the ground, dusted off the BASA, and ensured that they (BASA) were respected. And when they (foreign airlines) later conceded that Air Peace could start flying the routes, we knew we had achieved something. You saw the immediate results as prices began to dip. But that’s not the only lucrative route we have in Nigeria, we have other routes coming up.
“We are looking at the American routes and the South American routes. Nobody is even flying to South America at all now. But something is in the offing for us to start that route now. That is just one aspect of helping them (local airlines) to enforce the BASA by telling the countries that these are our flight carriers so that they can respect them as Nigeria representatives, not as just private businesses in the country. But the second aspect of that is to ensure that these airlines can also have the capacity after giving them the routes,” he explained.
The Federal Government is also looking at how to enhance the capacity of local airlines to service the routes.
According to Keyamo, “One thing is to give them the routes, but how do we enhance their capacity to service those routes? One way of doing this is to ensure that they also have access to aircraft in the same way that these big airlines around the world have access to aircraft”.
