Nigeria battles for routes to market

Aeropolitics is a critical part of the global aviation system that highlights the politics involved in access to international air links and borders. It is this intrinsic link between aviation and politics that has, over the years, exposed many Nigeria-registered airlines to the challenges experienced in their efforts to implement bilateral air services agreements (BASAs).

Nigeria has BASAs with more than 78 countries. Yet, out of the 23 active domestic airlines, only four out of those designated for regional and international flights are currently implementing those operations.

The designated airlines include Air Peace, Arik Air, Overland Airways, Ibom Air and United Nigeria Airlines.

Efforts by some of the airlines to operate scheduled flights from Nigeria to west coast cities were initially met with constraining conditions and obstructed the route expansion plans of some of the airlines.

Air Peace, for example, could not commence flights to Lome, Togo until 2023. As at 2019 when Air Peace had 16 international destination slots and 17 regional slots, securing approval from particularly, Francophone West African countries was very difficult.

Asky from Togo was offering four flights to Lagos daily, but Air Peace was not granted approval by the Togolese authorities until the chairman, Allen Onyema, threatened to go to court and the authorities apologised.

When Cote’d Ivoire authorities initially granted permission to Air Peace, no airport office was provided for the airline and USD$10,000 was among the charges the airline was asked to pay. It was much later that permissions were granted.

On the inter-continental routes, the politics of market protectionism has worked against Nigerian airlines and pushed some of them out of the international routes and out of operations. Medview Airlines until March 2018, operated the Lagos-London and Lagos-Dubai routes under multiple operational hurdles and resistance from aviation authorities in those countries, as they did everything to dissuade Medview and encourage their own airlines.

Medview was the only surviving Nigerian airline on the Lagos-London route after the exit of Arik Air from London, New York and Johannesburg routes in 2017. Medview’s aircraft were eventually banned from operating into the regions. Today, the airline is not flying.

Medview’s managing director, Muneer Bankole, said governments of those countries do all sorts of things to resist having Nigerian airlines compete with theirs.

Many Nigerian aviation stakeholders believe that foreign airlines that have secured flights from Nigeria to their countries have always, through their conduct in cahoots with aviation authorities of their home countries, what Onyema described as an “unspoken alliance”, proved that they do not want Nigerian airlines to compete with them.

They introduce obstacles using their embassies, their airports, handling companies and other players to frustrate Nigerian airlines’ efforts to reciprocate their flights to Nigeria.

Despite the international travel culture of Nigerians, Nigeria loses huge foreign exchange to international air transport because Nigerian airlines are not major players. Besides, the sector has not been able to live up to expectations in terms of contributions to GDP for this reason.

The United Kingdom has 21 slots into Nigeria per week. British Airways is operating 14 slots. Air Peace has slots for seven daily flights into Gatwick and on March 30, 2024, commenced the direct flights, starting with low fares and reducing the existing business class fares from US$15,000 (N15million) to US$4,000 (N4million) at N1,000 per dollar.

Narrating the airline’s experience at Gatwick Airport, Onyema said in a television interview: “Within 24 hours, those foreign airlines reduced their fares to N5million.”

Air Peace believes the intention was to force the airline out of the route and increase the fares again.

“It’s a very devilish conspiracy,” he said, encouraging other Nigerian airlines to take the step Air Peace has taken. “Yes, international aeropolitics is very dirty but somebody must pay the price,” he said.

Sustaining a Nigerian airline on the Lagos-London route is beyond just airline business. It is a game of international aeropolitics involving governments of both countries. According to Onyema, there are already efforts by UK authorities and their agencies at that airport to ensure Air Peace fails to depart on time, the way it is departing on time from the Lagos end.