Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates have signed a new Bilateral Air Services Agreement BASA.
Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development Festus Keyamo who disclosed this to Aviation correspondents in lagos on Wednesday said the new Agreement is a win-win for both countries and the aviation sector as holistic body given the benefits Nigerian Airlines stand to gain from it and Nigerian Airlines can fly to any Airport in the United Arab Emirates.
He noted that the Nigerian government had identified the UAE, as a major and important country that they should restore relationship with especially the issues of visa suspension and the eventual flight suspension by the UAE which did not favour both countries, hence the need to sign a new BASA redefining the relationship altogether again.
Keyamo said “The first thing we did when we went to negotiate a new bilateral service agreement was to also secure the route for our local operators. And I’m sure you saw my statement last week. It was one of the major things I stood my ground on. And if you look at the new one, it said to any destination, so nobody is going to have to say, well, this is prime, this is not prime airport. Our agreement with them is they fly to any destination, we fly to any destination in the UAE. So it’s purely reciprocal in that respect.”
He further stated “First of all, you know that we have a variety of choices now. We have more competition on different international routes now. That’s what it’s all about, is to ensure healthy competition, and healthy competition leads to competitive prizes for the benefit of the Nigerian people. I’m sure you know, without mentioning an airline, when this was suspended, I’m sure you know that some other airlines ripped the benefits. Many of them increased their frequencies to Nigeria. Many of them increased their prices because the seats were not available, flights were not available, and all of that. You also know that why we fought for this is that Dubai in particular is a major hub of the world. It links virtually every country of the world. I have not seen any major country, , that is not linked from Dubai,so for Nigerian travellers , it is easy to access any part of the world by simply travelling to Dubai and connecting to that country.”
He also speaks of the benefits for Nigerian Airlines “And for our airlines too, I can tell you that we also secured some kind of code-sharing agreement. We told them that if they want to code-share, our airlines will have the right of first refusal.” We said our local airlines will have the right of first refusal because there will be a lot of code-sharing in this respect now. And as I speak with you, they are speaking with many of our local operators
Emirates is speaking with a lot of our local operators now, and that is also for the benefit of our local aviation industry.”
Keyamo also disclosed Nigeria’s drive to restore global confidence in the country’s aviation sector, a commitment the minister said is to attract more flight operations into the country.
For two years the United Arab Emirates had suspended flight operations into Nigeria, only to return on October 1st 2024, after signing the new BASA with Nigeria
About The Author
