Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) has excoriated foreign airlines for feasting on Nigerian passengers with exploitative airfares, which is the highest from any African destination.
AON made this known in a meeting it held with other aviation stakeholders, including international airlines representatives, hosted by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila.
The indigenous carriers expressed reservations over the attitude of some countries, which the federal government allows their airlines to operate into Nigeria, but refuse to approve the request of indigenous airlines to also operate into their own cities.
AON said that these countries flout the principle of reciprocity embedded in the Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) and urged the Nigerian government to respond with stringent measures by denying those countries’ airlines the approval to also fly into Nigeria.
The airline operators also hinted that foreign airlines pillory the Nigerian government in the media for not making forex available for them to repatriate their revenues, but insisted that government does not have dollars and that is why it has not made such monies, put at $700 million, available to the international carriers.
Speaking on behalf of AON, the Vice President of the association and the Chairman/CEO of Air Peace, Allen Onyema said, “There are so many issues raised and I want people to understand that the Nigerian airlines are not against foreign airlines repatriating their money but we feel so sad that some Nigerians and international airlines are using certain narratives in an attempt to rubbish the government and the country and that is unacceptable. He who comes to equity must come with clean hands. A situation whereby people sponsored some agents to go on television to badmouth the government that it has failed because funds were trapped is unacceptable.
“This issue of trying to prevent Nigerian airlines from doing what they are doing didn’t start now. Let us take our minds back to the evacuation flights during COVID-19 and when they say it is because of trapped funds that the disparity in the cost of flight tickets is so huge, I disagree.
“During COVID-19 evacuation, the cost of fuel was not this high. Air Peace struggled to get landing permit into Heathrow airport to help Nigerians. Our tickets were sold out within two hours for a 364-seater aircraft, which is our triple seven. Why was it like that? It is because Air Peace understood the plight of Nigerians and fixed it fare at less than N400, 000, while another airline coming from there was taking about two thousand pounds from Nigeria. We charged Nigerians less than six hundred dollars to and fro. We went there and they tried to discourage us. They sent dogs after our aircraft to sniff at our pilots and at the end of the day; they stopped Air Peace from doing its walk-around on its aircraft, something that violates safety. The rule of aviation is that when you take off and your aircraft leaves the ground for just two minutes, if that plane wants to land, before that plane can take off again, it must do a walk around because anything could have hit the plane in transit.
“We flew six hours into London but we were not allowed to go round our aircraft to know if it has been compromised. Thankfully, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) petitioned the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) over that. They do these things to us but Nigerians would not go on television to complain and ask questions about that but we were very quick to run the government of Nigeria down, saying that they failed because foreign airlines couldn’t get their money. Nigerians must begin to de-stigmatise themselves because what is happening is very unfortunate. Anything could have happened to our aircraft on its way back to Nigeria and because they saw that we were going to bring these fares down, the second one flight, which we had gotten approval for was cancelled. I didn’t want Nigerians to suffer, so, I hired a European airline and paid for 584 Nigerians to be brought back free of charge.
“We must begin to love our country. We are not against them collecting their money but how do you explain that someone flying nine hours from South Africa to London is paying less than a Nigerian flying six hours. How do you explain how someone flying from London to Las Vegas is paying far less than what a Nigerian is paying for six hours. We belong to IATA and I would implore them to use the same force to tell these people that we are also qualified. If Air Peace could do a 14 hour non-stop flight to China, six hours to London is a piece of cake. But we are always hitting brick walls. So, I expect the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and those Nigerians clapping for the foreign airlines to know that we are doing ourselves a disservice.”
AON insisted that Nigeria’s forex is depleted; not that it seized foreign airlines’ funds, noting that CBN has told the airlines to go through the Investors and Exporters (I and E) forex window just like domestic airlines are doing.
“You cannot give what you don’t have. If the government had the money, the foreign airlines would have been paid. What we should be thinking about is solutions to these issues so that they would stop blackmailing Nigeria. How do we solve this problem? You knew quite well that your funds would be trapped in Nigeria and you are increasing your frequency every day to the detriment of the local airlines. What we are saying is that Nigerian airlines should be allowed to access these foreign countries,” Onyema added.
