The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has stated that if countries in Africa remove travel restrictions and encourage flight operations by African airlines, the continent would develop its economy without relying on Europe, Asia or the US.
IATA also expressed the belief that African nations can grow $80 billion annually in their GDP, create 6.9 million jobs and airlift 69.8 million passengers if each nation opens its airspace to enhance free movement from one country to another in the continent.
The world body said this could be achieved if Africa fully embraces Yamoussoukro Decision, which was a decision adopted by African leaders to have seamless flight operations from one country to another by African airlines.
In West and Central Africa, Arik Air is the only Nigerian airline that has established itself by opening many destinations in these sub-regions and airlifting many Nigerians, who do business in the West and Central Africa directly from Nigeria to their destinations.
The Nigerian Ambassador to Gabon, Mr. Bassey Archibong said a lot of Nigerians do business in many countries in West and Central Africa and this would be enhanced by direct flights from Nigeria to these destinations.
He noted that this would enhance the movement of finished goods from Nigeria to these countries in the West and Central Africa, which will invariably boost manufacturing in Nigeria as such goods would find ready markets in the neighbouring countries.
As it is now, Nigerians, especially those from the South East, constitute the highest number of men and women in the West and Central Africa business corridors, from Accra to Dakar, to Libreville and farther to other cities in many countries in these sub-regions.
Before Arik Air and Asky Airline started operating to many countries in West and Central Africa, travellers to these destinations had to travel to Europe or East or South Africa first before connecting their flights to some countries in West and Central Africa. This has diminished business potential and interaction among the people of these sub-regions and when Asky started operating to these destinations, it introduced exorbitant fares that could not be afforded by these businessmen who were not travelling for luxury but business.
So it was a relief when Arik started developing new routes in these sub-regions. Before now many aviators had criticised Nigerian airlines for not taking the advantage of the nations’ population to dominate air travel in these sub-regions and beyond, but allow other operators outside the West African coast to develop pseudo regional airlines to dominate the area and charge outrageous, monopoly fares.
A business man travelling to Libreville on Tuesday told THISDAY that Nigerians in Gabon were highly elated when Arik introduced flights to Libreville and narrated what the Nigerians in that country suffer before travelling to their country.
“We could not believe that we can travel directly to Nigeria from Gabon but now it is possible. We are just asking that Arik does not stop because it will take a little time for people to be sensitised that we can now travel to Nigeria directly from Libreville. We come to Nigeria and buy goods to sell in Gabon; we also travel to other African countries. If we can travel freely like this, believe me, we can expand all the businesses in Africa and the fare is good but I believe that they can bring it down when more people will learn about these flights.” he said.
Deputy Managing Director and Head of Flight Operations of Arik Air, Captain Ado Sanusi, told THISDAY on Monday that the aim of developing the routes in West and Central Africa was to promote the growth of the airline and cover most of the West and Central African region and more importantly to increase commerce among the people of the sub-regions.
“Historically, Nigerians trade with most of the people of the neighbouring countries and there was connection either by road or sometimes by sea and even when air transport was developed, Nigeria Airways and Air Afrique maintained the connectivity between the countries in Africa, especially in West Africa. To promote commerce we embarked on the rebirth of trading routes. That is what prompted us to expand those destinations in West and Central Africa.
Sanusi said there is a lot of trading activities, especially from the people of South East of the Nigeria to other parts of Africa.
“So the South Eastern part of the country is known for trading within the West and Central African sub-regions. We have seen a lot of demand even now that we are opening new routes. There are a lot of demands all the way to Dakar, all the way to Doula. This is a market that we are developing and very soon we are going to roll out a blue print on how we are going to cover the entire West and Central Africa and our main objective is to be a dominant player in these sub-regions and put our footprints in all the countries and then make sure that we enhance commerce.”
He said the airline is getting feedbacks and it is the feedback that is encouraging it to open new routes and increase frequencies.
“Recently we have been having feedbacks that they want us to connect Abidjan with Dakar, which we are already thinking of doing. We re-opened Freetown, Sierra Leone after the unfortunate case of Ebola Virus Disease and we are connecting Accra with a lot of other West African countries with Dakar into Accra, Freetown into Accra and the rest and even Monrovia. So we are connecting and we are looking at expanding more,” Sanusi added.
He said that very soon Arik would be looking at countries like Burkina Faso, Mali and the rest and would be expanding to these countries as market demands, adding that the airline has better connection and better airfares to the market that it serves.
However, Sanusi admitted that the airline still faces restriction because “despite the fact that there is Yamoussoukro Decision, sometimes you go through a long process of obtaining foreign airline operators permit and that delays the operation to the new routes we are developing. Yes, we still have the bottlenecks, the red tapes, but having said that, it is also very important to say that these other countries would like to see the growth of airlines in their own countries.”
As Nigerians dominate the international business in the West and Central Africa sub-regions, it becomes imperative that Nigerian airlines should be dominant in these destinations in order to earn and plough their revenues back to the country.
CULLED FROM THISDAY
