The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, yesterday said that the Federal Government had written to the United Kingdom to allow Nigerian carriers, particularly Air Peace, to operate to Heathrow Airport.
The Minister, who spoke at the League of Airports and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC) seminar in Lagos on Friday, said Nigeria would no longer allow a situation where the country’s airlines are not allowed to operate to tier one airports overseas in line with the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA). He said that failure to allow Air Peace into Heathrow may lead to Nigeria taking British Airways and others to places like Ilorin, Kano, and other obscure places.

He stated that in the absence of a national carrier, the government would support local airlines and give them whatever they need to survive and succeed, hinting, “we should have flag carriers who will make us very proud and that will service our reciprocal rights and the BASA that we have, but they must make sure they raise the global standards and make us proud.”

His words: “We are working and collaborating with Nigerian carriers to ensure that they are supported. We have already written to the United Kingdom to give Nigerian carriers, especially Air Peace, Heathrow Airport, which is a tier one airport just as we have British Airways in Lagos, which is our tier one airport. We may as well give BA Ilorin to operate to. When we asked for Heathrow Airport, you’re telling us to go to a slot committee. Who does that? Air Peace, I can tell you, is on its way to Heathrow away from Gatwick.

“We will look into so many agreements that we have that are not working in the interest of our airlines. We need to support them to grow, but they must show capacity to reciprocate many of the agreements. Air France flies to Nigeria and no Nigerian airline is flying to Paris. Lufthansa, Delta, and a host of others fly there, but no Nigerian carrier is operating to Frankfurt or to the US. South African Airlines flies to Nigeria and no Nigerian carrier reciprocates. Nigerian carriers are constrained and that is the reason you are having a high mortality rate of airlines in Nigeria. Over 150 Nigerian carriers have gone into extinction in the last 35 years and that is very disheartening.”

The Minister disclosed that the aviation regulatory body, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), had to wait for the airline operators to come for the renewal of their Air Operator Certificate (AOC) because of the tough economic situation which has affected the carriers over so many years. The Minister admitted that there were issues in the sector but noted that the administration was working to solve them one after the other, saying that they won’t be able to solve all the issues at once but will face the most critical ones first.