FOREIGN AIRLINES REPATRIATE N1.7bn ON TICKET SALES

Airline operators under the aegis of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) have sent a position paper to the Federal Government on the need to review the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) it had with other countries. President of the association, Capt. Nogie Meggison, said that about N1.7 billion leaves the country yearly through ticket sales. He urged the Federal Government to address all the BASAs with foreign countries, lamenting that Nigeria has over 50 BASAs with nations. Most of the pacts are yet to be reciprocated, leading to lop-sidedness in the agreement and leading to huge capital flight from the country. This also came as the operators denied reports that they had increased air fares. To them, the carriers had continued to charge travellers fares below N18,000 despite the sliding of naira as against major currencies around the world, especially the dollar. Meggison explained that it became expedient for government at this time of dwindling crude oil prices in the international market to address the situation, stressing that some unscrupulous persons in government had signed “out our future generations for peanuts at the expense of about 80 million Nigerian youths.” At present, the Federal Government has about 80 BASAs with other countries, but only 29 of these BASAs are active while 16 of them are based in Africa, seven in Europe while the other five are in the Middle East/Asia and the United States of America (USA). The AON president insisted that rather than protect Nigerian carriers, government had been favouring foreign carriers who had continually repatriated resources generated into their own countries without any tangible project in the country. According to him, “it’s obvious that we as Nigerians need to sit down and start to look inward. You can’t feed other people’s children when your own children are suffering from kwashiorkor. Nigerian government must review all BASAs. “BASAs must be mutually beneficial between two sovereign countries and not as a big brother approach. With our geographical location, there is no reason for our aviation industry not to contribute 12 per cent to our Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with a target of 20 per cent. Emirates is contributing 27 per cent to its GDP. Nigeria needs to look at aviation as something that can contribute to our economy.” Meggison noted that the airlines were yet to increase fares and called on government to intervene in the dwindling fortune of naira as against major currencies. He noted that over 80 per cent of transactions in the country’s aviation industry are directly affected by foreign exchange, urging government to create a window of negotiation with the operators in order to cushion the effect of the current economy on the operators.