The Minister of State for Aviation in Nigeria, Senator Hadi Sirika recently disclosed that the government has signed a Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) with India. The BASA, which was signed during the Minister’s official visit to India, would enable the two countries to operate direct flights, deepening flight operations from one end to the other.
With this agreement, there are speculations that the total number of BASAs Nigeria has with other countries has risen to over 90. However, reports show that only 28 of those BASAs are active and no Nigerian carriers are currently taking part in the frequencies.
Bilateral Air Service Agreements are treaties signed between countries to allow international commercial air transport services between territories. They promote international air link between countries, which supports and enables the movement of persons, cargo, trade and tourism. These agreements provide the framework under which identified airlines from the two countries fly into designated ports in each other’s country.
Apart from paving the way for direct flights, BASA ought to deepen bilateral ties between the countries, correct balance of trade, generate sufficient national income for the countries involved and boost their economies as well. However, as attractive as the concept of reciprocity of rights is in BASA’s negotiation and its accruable benefits, Nigeria as an economy fails to take full advantage of it. As a result, questions have been raised as to the effectiveness and profitability of these lopsided agreements to the Nigerian economy over the years.
Experts have advocated for restraint in signing air service agreements when Nigerian carriers are unable to fly to any of the partner countries; some of which enjoy multiple entry points into the country as covered in the pact. This development shortchanges indigenous carriers as well as the country with foreign airlines remitting huge amounts of money out of Nigeria on ticket sales.
The Guardian recently reported that “unfavourable” BASAs that allow foreign airlines access into the local market is costing the Nigerian economy and her ailing aviation sub-sector billions of Naira yearly. The loss, in excess of over N200 billion yearly, follows the perennial inability of the nation’s flag carriers to reciprocate and compete with their international partners on the BASA routes.
Lack of capacity greatly affects Nigerian carriers. This often results in failure to reciprocate some of the bilateral air services agreements as indigenous carriers cannot match any of the foreign carriers on routes when the agreements are either utilised or reciprocated.
Despite all of this, there are indications that more BASAs would be signed this year as further disclosed by Sirika recently.
However, the recent pact with India may be different. As This Day reports, one of Nigeria’s flag carriers, Air Peace, is getting set to launch Lagos-India operations with its Boeing 777 airplanes. In 2018, Air Peace got the Federal government’s approval to operate on the west coast, including Ghana and other countries in Central Africa, coupled with six international routes – China, U.S., U.K., India, Dubai, and South Africa.
BASA, otherwise called Air Transport Agreement (ATA), is an understanding between two nations to allow international commercial air transport services within their territories. It dates back to the Chicago Convention of 1944.
