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How Nigeria, UAE row was prevented over Medview’s flight right

- Nigeria aviation mkt, huge potential over 50 years
The hurdles deliberately set by foreign airlines to frustrate Nigerian airlines from reciprocating Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) came to the fore yesterday as United Arab Emirates prevented a diplomatic spat between it and the Nigerian Government.
The UAE had recently prevented Nigeria’s flag carrier airline, Medview Airline from operating to Dubai Terminal One Airport citing slot allocation or ‘lack of space’ at the Emirates Airline’s hub in Dubai.
The UAE had concluded plans to allow Medview which is scheduled to begin Lagos-Dubai flight by end of the year to Sharjah, to operate to a remote and less viable airport in the country which was flatly rejected by the carrier and Nigerian government.
After Medview had filed applications to the UAE, backed by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the former wrote back to say they could only allow the Nigerian flag carrier to operate into Sharjah.
Speaking at an occasion to unveil its new routes which include Baltimore, Washington, Houston Texas, Abidjan, Conakry, other routes and upgrading of four First Officers to captains Saturday night in Lagos, the Managing Director of Medview Airlines Plc, Muneer Bankole said some countries tried very hard to put impediments on their path to frustrate the carrier from operating outside the shores of Nigeria because of competition.
He described protectionism in airline business, especially for foreign carriers who have unfettered access to Nigerian market as very unfair.
His words, “The Dubai authorities said they had no space for us in Terminal 1 and instructed that we move to another airport in Sharjah. We wrote to the Federal Government. The government wrote a strongly worded letter to them to allow for reciprocity.”


Government said since they did not stop Emirates Airlines from operating to Nigeria, there was no reason why they should not allow Medview to reciprocate flight rights.
He disclosed that the Dubai authority eventually listened and yielded to government’s request that the airline operate to Dubai Airport Terminal One.
“We want to commend the government and the Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika for helping to protect the interest of our airlines. The speed at which they rose to the occasion was highly commendable. I am very proud of the government that we have for taking this up with UAE.”.
Bankole also disclosed that the ‘big boys’, which can be interpreted to be mega carrier on the lucrative London route are posing great challenge to the operations of the airline to London, but noted that the carrier has come to stay on the route which is about the most lucrative for the airline aside the West Coast route.
This scenario has given cause for concern on how Nigeria has been liberal in granting traffic rights to foreign carriers without getting anything in return, especially as it relates to domestic carriers.
Although the Minister of State, Sirika recently ordered foreign carriers to recruit Nigerian pilots to be part of the technical crew of foreign carriers into Nigeria as a measure getting some positive returns for the country.
Over the years, Nigeria seems not to have taken aero political manoeuvrings seriously. The closest it came about was the stand-off between it and United Kingdom some six years ago when the British Airport Authority (BAA) had to stop Arik over failure to renew its slot at Heathrow Airport.
Tension was high as the Nigerian government threatened to stop British Airways from operating to Nigeria in what it described as a tit for tat policy of reciprocity.
The Nigerian government through the NCAA immediately filed a case against British Airways for price fixing among other ill treatment levied against Nigeria travellers.
An aviation expert who spoke on strict condition of anonymity said being Africa’s largest aviation market, Nigeria can take a bold move to negotiate on its own and force its agenda through.
“As a top emerging market, Nigeria’s aviation market is a huge potential over the next 50 years, considering the current and future youth population and the untapped human and material resources”.
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