Re: re FG keeps Emirates, Turkish out of Kano despite Minister's pledge

The SA to the Hon Minister of Aviation was forced to clear the air for the umpteenth time on this lopsided bilateral agreement that clearly favours the government of UAE and Turkey. Quoting him "once again we are constrained to comment on the above subject matter and make further clarifications since some interest seem bent on making political capital out of an already settled question", while I am not surprised at the political angle being taken by the ministry to survive the concurrent blackmail and pressure by a coordinated group which is detrimental to the growth of our airlines and obviously at variance with the projected GDP contribution of aviation as espoused by the Honourable Minister in her road map for the industry. My surprise is the unbelievable silence of the operators, AON, unions and other interest groups that prefer to wait for bailout, free aircraft s and the new contraption Air Transformation aka national carrier. Emirates and Etihad airlines are from one country, they were granted approval to operate into Lagos, Kano and Abuja respectively without reciprocity, somewhere along the line an enhanced BASA was signed to give Emirates a second daily flight to Lagos. The two carriers operate about 42 flights a week in and out of Lagos alone, while also increasing gauge and in the nearest future will operate into Abuja and Kano. This is simply unfavourable and detrimental to the industry and the country as a whole. If they must operate into Abuja and Kano they must relinquish some frequencies into Lagos. Nigeria Airways built this route using public funds that has not and can never be recouped, we need to separate politics from aviation,reciprocity,commercial partnership and protection is the common denominator in any bilateral. Etihad has bought shares in airlines in Seychelles, Ireland, Germany e.t.c and partnering with carriers in countries like South-Africa, Kenya India e.t.c, but in Nigeria they all want to operate to different cities unhindered. The United States the proponents of the open skies have pressured weaker countries to join the train despite their weakness to compete but have cautiously refused to sign the same agreement with China because the American aviation unions resisted based on perceived job losses. Emirates demand for extra frequencies into Canada and Germany was halted due to the pressure from Air Canada and Lufthansa respectively. It’s the same Lufthansa that operates into Lagos, combines Abuja and PH flight into the country and were recently granted fifth freedom into Accra, yet refused to pay royalties under the ridiculous tag of helping our aviation industry. Delta Airlines has taken a government owned bank EX-IM bank, of USA to court for financial incentives given to Emirates and other foreign carriers. These incentives are meant to encourage the purchase of Boeing aircrafts. These actions are geared towards protection and development of home grown carriers not using archaic options of bailout or formation of national carrier. Least I forget can our policy makers go through the recently signed enhanced BASA between Singapore and India or between France, Mali and Burkina-faso, the rudiments of reciprocity and commercial partnership were clearly stated. It’s what we sow that we will reap, cheap blackmail and executive capitulation without recourse to the rudiments stated above is two steps forward and eight steps backward. The GDP projections are meant for the foreign airlines operations based on our policies and we should not forget that these funds will be repatriated to their respective countries and not kept in Nigeria. We must tweak our policies urgently to attract investors and franchise partners.