Foreign airlines seek govt's nod for more flights
By Wole Shadare and Adeyemi Adepetun
BARELY two weeks after some foreign airlines reportedly increased their fares out of Nigeria, the international carriers have again applied for extra flights as they continue to grapple with over-booking.
A source from one of the British carriers confirmed to The Guardian that most of the airlines have already applied to the Ministry of Aviation for extra frequencies, adding that their requests were receiving attention from the ''highest quarters".
The President of the National Association of Travel Agencies of Nigeria (NANTA), Mr. Soji Amusan who corroborated the source, explained that ''foreign airlines are now asking for excess capacity ".
His words: "They want extra flights. They have even applied for increase in flight".
Amusan who was reacting to the on-going difficulties by travellers to secure flights out of the country due to over-booking described the situation as unfortunate.
The shortage of capacity from Lagos is compounded by the fact that no Nigerian carrier is servicing the international routes, especially the European routes, thus leading to over $2 billion capital flight from the country yearly.
The call for more frequencies by these foreign airlines such as British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa, Air France-KLM and Emirates, is seen as one sided and disadvantageous to the local market.
According to industry operators and professionals, it is unthinkable and economically suicidal for the government which is preventing local operators from operating the plum routes under the guise of route reservation policy to be giving out more frequencies to foreign operators.
It also goes to show imbalance in the dual designation agreement with the United Kingdom, whose airlines currently operates 22 weekly flights into Nigeria without any reciprocity from here.
The government is currently reserving some plum international routes, including London, New York, Dubai, Amsterdam and Johannesburg, for the proposed new flag carrier being floated to replace the liquidated Nigeria Airways Limited (NAL).
Currently, British Airways enjoys 14 frequencies out of Lagos and Abuja airports while Virgin operates nine frequencies out of Lagos and Port Harcourt airports. Lufthansa and Air France equally enjoy nine frequencies each out of Nigeria.
If the Federal Government eventually grants the airlines their requests, the action may affect domestic airline operators who have kicked against increased frequencies and multiple entries of foreign airlines into Nigeria while the government keeps them down.
The Federal Government recently approved the designation of six local operators on some international routes, including Cotonou, Lome, Accra, Abidjan, N'djamena, Bombay, Rome, Madrid, Banjul, Sao Tome and Principe and Luanda which the operators consider to be secondary routes with very low market demand.
It said it was reserving the plum routes for a yet to be born national carrier, which daily leaves hundreds of passengers stranded at the country's airports due to over-booking by the carriers.
Amusan urged the government to quickly solve the problem of a national carrier, stressing that in the alternative, there are other Nigerian airlines that operate to London.
''They are talking about capital flight. Why will capital flight not continue What is delaying our airlines from operating into Europe If we have a Nigerian airline carrying 300 passengers a day, will that not solve a lot of problems he queried.
"They should give these routes to Nigerian airlines to operate", he added.
Also, the Chairman of the Nigerian Association of Tour Operators (NATOP), Mrs. Fatimah Garbati, stated that demand was outstripping capacity.
According to her: "Government should have a flag carrier or a national airline. When Nigeria Airways was there, it took a lot of people off these foreign airlines. Everybody is going through the United Kingdom. I do not understand why the UK should still be seen as one of the exclusive routes that should not be given to indigenous carriers to operate.
Government, according to her, should go ahead and quickly incorporate a flag carrier or a national carrier and also balance the UK route by appointing another independent carrier to operate from Nigeria to the UK.
The President, Aviation Round Table (ART), Group Captain John Obakpolor (rtd), had a fortnight ago told The Guardian that the government's attitude towards the designation of Nigerian carrier on the lucrative routes would continue to cause capital flight if necessary actions were not taken on time.
