… Wants Nigerian operators to heed the wakeup call on SAATM
Minister of State, Aviation Senator Hadi Sirika has assured the nation that no domestic airline operating in the country would be allowed to accumulate debts as they used to do in the past.
Sirika who lamented that an airline that has gone under with an humongous sum of N500billion debt said such a thing has become part of history that would never be allowed to repeat itself in the aviation industry in Nigeria again.
The Minister who spoke with aviation journalists at Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos on some industry issues, refuted the allegations that all the Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) entered into by the nation skewed against her. He insisted that the nation would continue to sign BASA until it reaps the benefits provided in them..
“We will continue to sign this BASAs up to a time that Nigeria would take full advantage of the BASAs themselves and we cannot sign a BASA that would be skewed against Nigeria. It cannot happen. It is not only the Ministry of
On the insistence of Nigerian domestic Airline Operators and Owners not to part take in the full implementation of the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), Sirika who explained that the implementation of the initiative would begin but it would take between one to two years before it is fully functional and operatabl, implored the operators not to sit back and watch the train passing them by, but should grab the great potential the initiative provided,
“If I will advise them, they should get their Acts together to focus to reorganise, to re-engineer and take advantage and be futuristic and looking at the bigger future and organize themselves and take advantage of the SAATM rather than to sit there and the train is moving and begin to whine,” Sirika counseled..
He further explained, “Nigeria is among the first 11 countries that went to Yamousukro and took a decision to liberalize the sector and open the sky for Africa and this means growth. This means development. This means more jobs. This means more security and this means more connectivity. This means more passenger experience and comfort. Now arising from that and Nigeria being a signatory to that, the Single African Air Transport Market became the issue and Nigeria also joined to become the first 23 countries to make that solemn declaration on Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) and I think Nigeria with population of 173m people, half the size of West Africa, would be the greatest beneficiary to this”.
Recalled that Nigeria had a national carrier as at the time the initiative was proposed, Sirika revealed that the nation would had taken the advantage of the airline, Nigerian population size and its geographical location to grab the advantages in SAATM. He however, regretted that since the demise of the Nigeria Airways all domestic airlines that came after the defunct national carriers have not develop to fill the vacuum created and unable to grab the advantage.
“At the time Nigeria was pushing for this you and I know we had Nigeria Airways and we thought we would take advantage of it. Now we don’t and our airlines for one reason or another have not grown to that capacity and this is why the government felt that we should set in motion to create a robust carrier that would take advantage of this SAATM for the benefit of the Nigerian people. So I believe we are on the right course. I believe that this private sector led and driven airline once established would become the dominant carrier in Africa because the market is Nigeria. Its centrality to Africa, by its geography is god- given. And with the market of 173million people, this is a large population and Nigeria travels almost for nothing. So if you talk of advantage, Nigeria is at vantage position to take advantage of this SAATM. As soon as it is signed the implementation begins but you know that it would take between one to two years before it is fully functional and operatable,” Sirika said.
The Minister however advised operators of Nigerian flag carriers to get their priority right and do businesses model that would be profitable to them.
“.I think is getting their priority right and doing the business model that would bring money for them. Everybody wants to run into scheduled passenger flights. There is a lot they can do in aviation,” he advised.
On the indebtedness of domestic airlines to the aviation industry Sirika said Look there is an airline that is owing one of the agencies N13bn. There is an airline that is owing total debt of N500bn which is its collective indebtedness of that airline. That airline crashed or at least it is being taken over. And I do feel that in a situation like that. Under this administration, it is not going to happen to allow them to continue to pile debt and go to the villa and the debts are either waived off or the debts are post- dated. No villa will call any airline. There is no door that is open for.
