Emirates’ Return To Nigeria: Keyamo Says Flights Will Be Reciprocal
Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation & Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo (SAN) says the agreement with United Arab Emirates authorities that restored Emirates flights into Nigeria earlier this week, provides for reciprocity.
Speaking in an interview with aviation journalists at Lagos airport yesterday on arrival of an Emirates flight, 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. I am 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 airport. This is not prime airport. Our agreement with them is that they fly to any destination. We fly to any destination in the UAE. So, it’s purely reciprocal in that respect.”
He added that “for Nigerian travellers, it is easy to access any part of the world by simply travelling to Dubai and connecting to that country. For our airlines too, I can speak, 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. So, that is an expo I’m giving to you. 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. As I speak with you, they are speaking with many of our local operators. I went with some of them, I’m sure you saw some of them. Emirates is speaking with a lot of our local operators now, and that is also for the benefit of our local aviation industry.”
“In fact, I will put it advisedly that we are also free to fly to any airport in the UAE. They have Shajah. They have the Etihad Stadium. They also have the DXB. That’s it, there is Qatar. So, we insisted on that. We have initiated the agreement, and I can bet you this is for the entire good of the Nigerian people, coupled, of course, with the fact that we have gone around the world trying to restore confidence again in our aviation ecosystem and our leasing industry, the aircraft leasing industry. I’m sure you followed the last two weeks. I have not spoken too much about it but I very soon, I will expand more on it,” said Keyamo, adding that on assumption of office, “we made it clear that we would like to restore relationships with most of the major partners and countries around the world. We identified as a government, UAE, as a major and important partner and country that we should restore our relationship with. The relationship went downhill before. You know, with suspension of visas, suspension of their flights, and for Nigerians, it was especially damaging because we know that Nigerians have a lot of investments in the UAE. They have a lot of interest and investments in UAE. Eventually, it was not an adventure in self-glorification. It was actually a fight for the people of Nigeria, especially. I am sure you see that the tempo around is that people are excited. People are happy that we are restoring relationships with the UAE, and that is why I took all the pain to go back there, to sign a new BASA. I went there. We signed a new air service agreement, bilateral air service agreement you know, redefining our relationship altogether again, making it more healthy, making it more open, and for the benefits, especially of the Nigerian people. I decided to accompany them there but I am sure you heard from them, not me. They say they are back to stay. They are not going anywhere again, because I think the suspension hurt both sides. They felt it and we felt it. Now they are back. “
He concluded by saying: “About the confidence we are giving to the leasing world with the practice direction of the Cape Town Convention that we identified early in this administration, I identified early as a core, to opening up the aviation industry in Nigeria. We have seen that our score, our compliance score has gone up tremendously and is still rising because in the next few weeks we are also going to roll out the areas, also, that will substantially increase our scores, our compliance scores. So, all of that will combine to then empower our local operators to be able to service this route and also compete favorably with some of these big airlines that we are inviting into Nigeria; and more competition, less prices, and hey, everybody can. Any major businessman can come together and float an airline. We want more airlines to come to Nigeria to fly locally, regionally and internationally.”
