Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, has hinted the federal government’s plan to supporting indigenous airlines in the country in securing long-term aircraft leases at competitive rates, in line with global industry standards. Keyamo assured that the government in line with its renewed hope mantra is dedicated to assisting domestic airlines companies in their international endeavours and will go an extra mile to ensure they remain in business on all routes they operate globally.
The Minister made the disclosure during an interview during an inaugural event for the Air Peace Lagos-London flight over the weekend.
According to the Minister, enabling Nigerian airlines to easily access long-term leasing and reducing the cost of aircraft insurance were critical to performance measures for his Ministry. Saying the intension of the federal government is geared towards assisting domestic airlines and prevents the exploitation of Nigerian travellers by foreign carriers.
In his statement, Keyamo said; “This is very significant, because it is has been very difficult for our local operators to service international routes and to take advantage of our Bilateral Air Service Agreements (BASAs), which give reciprocal rights to our local airlines,”
He explained that the concept of formation of BASAs is grounded on the idea of mutual benefit, where airlines from one country are permitted to operate flights to another country, while reciprocally allowing airlines from the latter country to do same, stressing that the flight arrangements are mutually beneficial and agreed upon within the BASA.
Explaining further, the minister revealed “What BASAs normally say is that when you have 14 slots into my country, they also give you 14 slots into their country. But there is politics of BASAs also because after giving you the 14 slots into their country, in most cases they play politics with it in such a way that they frustrate your own airlines from being able to take advantage of that.
“But beyond that too, our local operators are handicapped because they don’t have access to aircraft that international airlines have on the same terms. For example, the terms upon which they lease these aircrafts. There is no airline in the world that buys their fleet 100 percent. It is not possible.
“Statistics says that out of a 100 aircraft flying around the world, about 70 percent of those aircraft are on dry lease from leasing companies and from aircraft manufacturers. So, why can’t we take advantage of these lease arrangements to empower our local operators? And that is the key to also servicing these international routes because you cannot compete with someone who has access to aircraft on better terms than you,” he said.
