Allen Onyema, the chairman and chief executive officer of Air Peace, has lamented that the airlines of foreign countries come into Nigeria but that such countries make it impossible for Nigerian airlines to succeed in their countries.
He stated that Nigerians have been paying more than any other country for commensurate miles compared to other nations, stressing that people in South Africa are paying less for nine hours trip than Nigerians pay for six hours trip.
Onyema, who disclosed this during an interview with Channels Television on Wednesday, accused foreign airlines of not abiding by the Bilateral Air Services Agreement, BASA signed with Nigeria.
He said, “Central Bank is always calling on us to start international operations so that we could save money for the country. But the foreign nations are not allowing us to come to their countries.
“In the last 25 years, Nigerians have been paying more than any other countries for commensurate miles compared to the other nations.
“In the last 25 years, people in South Africa have been paying less for 9 hours trip, Johannesburg to London than Nigeria 6 hours (from Lagos) to London trip.
“Nigeria signed Bilateral Air Services Agreement, BASA to provide for both, for repatriation of funds and the most important aspect of BASA, reciprocity. Are the foreign airlines and their countries abiding by that? Have they respected the BASA they signed with Nigeria? The answer is no.
“United Kingdom is doing about 21 frequencies into my country but not even one for us. They have not been responding to Air Peace ordinary email. The only thing they do is to tell us to stop writing them, that whenever they are ready, they will get across to us.”
“Why are Nigerians paying N2.3 million for an economy ticket to go to London, when Air Peace would have taken N500,000 for the same trip?
“Why are we depleting our foreign reserve based on this? BASA should not be one-sided, it should be respected. Reciprocity is number one. These countries should be made to observe the BASA they signed. They have airlines coming into Nigeria but making it impossible for any Nigerian to succeed,” Onyema added.
The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) in 2021 withdrew the approval granted to Emirates Airlines by the Ministry of Aviation due to the refusal of the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) to grant equal rights to Air Peace to fly to Dubai via Sharjah.
However, Dubai-based Emirates suspended all its flights to Abuja and Lagos after the Nigerian government retaliated against the UAE’s treatment of Air Peace and cut Emirate’s slots from 21 to one.
Air Peace had rejected claims made by aviation authorities in the United Arab Emirates, on why the country decided to deny it flight slots in the Middle East country.
The UAE’s General Civil Aviation Authority described Air Peace’s request for three slots instead of the one it was given at the country’s second busiest airport, Sharja Airport, as “unreasonable”. It advised the airline to make up for the shortfall with flights to any other airport in the country that had available slots.
