The Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, summoned top officials of the Directorates of Air Traffic Regulations (DATR), Consumer Protection and Aviation Security of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) along with officials of Turkish Airlines for a meeting in Abuja Tuesday to review the Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) and also look at the safety and security infractions caused by passengers of the airline that forced their way to the tarmac at Abuja airport.
On Sunday the Minister suspended three airport officials on duty when the incident happened and rejected the claim that the security personnel on duty were overpowered by the passengers.
THISDAY gathered that there have been so much pressure on government by aviation stakeholders to review BASA and commercial agreements government has with foreign airlines which gave them the legal right to operate multiple entry service to different airports in Nigeria.
Government is also inclined to creating opportunity for code-share between foreign airlines and local operators after the review.
It is a generally believed in the industry that BASA agreements are skewed against the interest of the country and its airlines as each foreign carrier is allowed to operate to two or more airports in the country, thus shrinking the market for domestic carriers.
But some government officials in the Ministry of Aviation had argued that each of the six zones in the country should have an international airport because it is tedious and inconveniencing for passengers who wish to travel overseas to have to go to one airport in the country, no matter where they live.
THISDAY learnt that part of the discussion today would bother on the empowerment of local airlines in terms of opening the market for them and how government could boost its revenue from the reviewed and future BASA agreements.
Sirlka would also put new rules in place to ensure that such unruly behaviour by passengers who surged to the tarmac protesting the airline’s failure to deliver their luggage would not happen again.
The Minister on Sunday stated that the actions of the passengers by forcing their ways into the tarmac and blocked the aircraft from taking off was a security breach which must not be condoned.
Meanwhile, some marketers that sell Jet A1 to airlines had started providing skeletal service since December 24, citing inadequate manpower because of the holiday, as some of the workers travelled to celebrate the Yuletide.
The consequence is that this may lead to cancellation of flights as some of their airlines may not have enough fuel to operate their fleet.
One of the major airlines told THISDAY on Monday that it paid two oil marketing companies money to supply it fuel throughout the holiday but the marketing companies stopped supplying the agreed volume of Jet A1 as paid, saying that it could not move all its products to the airport due to imadequate manpower.
It is likely that affected airlines may start canceling flights from today until the marketers resume full supply of the product.
