The Federal Government has signed a Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) with the USA, India, Morocco and Rwanda.
Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika in his twitter handle @hadisirika stated, “I am glad to announce that Mr. President, on behalf of Nigeria, has signed the instruments of ratification of the bilateral air service agreement between Nigeria and USA, India, Morocco as well as Rwanda.”
BASA, founded on the principle of reciprocity, is a deal that enables a country’s airlines to enjoy equal leverage, in terms of flight operations, in countries with which their home country has an air agreement.
John Ojikutu, member of the aviation industry think tank group, Aviation Round Table (ART) and chief executive of Centurion Securities said concerned authorities need to first identify the places where private airlines or private aircraft can be accommodated in the existing agreements between Nigeria and these countries. He said: “We had a similar problem with Arik operations to the UK some years ago and there were some ‘diplomatic’ moves that restored the airline operated from Gatwick to Heathrow. The question I asked then was; what would happen if tomorrow you get a national carrier flying; would the national carrier be flying to Gatwick or to Heathrow? Some of these interventions in private operations and international operations are not well thought out government decisions but unilateral exploitations of the systems by some individuals in official capacities. My take is, if we don’t have a national carrier, let there be flag carriers as all American Airlines are but there must be policies and regulations to become one,” he said. He said that that is why Nigeria must have policies that classify her airlines as regional flag carriers, continental flag carriers or intercontinental flag carriers. “If Air Peace is being refused flights to the UK now but BA is still allowed to fly into Nigeria, we must revisit the agreement that allowed Air Peace into the UK within or without the BASA between the two countries if it is not a unilateral arrangement outside the BASA”, Ojikutu said.