Louis Ibah
Plans by the Federal Government to seal an open sky deal (also known as Single Air Transport Market in Africa) with about 23 other African countries met with brick wall as local airline owners on Tuesday announced they were pulling out of the agreement.
A sensitisation exercise coordinated by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and International air Transport Association (IATA) in Lagos yesterday for Nigerian stakeholders in the Single Air Transport Market in Africa (SATMA) turned controversial when the Airline Organisation of Nigerian (AON) faulted Nigeria’s participation in the deal as inimical to the financial health of local airlines and announced that they would not be a part of it.
“We say no to Nigeria’s participation in the open sky agreement. We shouldn’t sign treaties that will mortgage our future,” said Nogie Meggison, President of AON.
“We that are members of AON will not support open sky. As the critical stakeholder that is supposed to operate the open sky on behalf of Nigeria, I can say that we were never consulted or carried along in the process leading up to the agreement.
“In AON, we can’t support open sky. As a country, we are at present banning the importation of such commodities like rice, tomatoes, toothpicks, etc and encouraging local production, so why should we enter into an open sky agreement with anyone when it is very clear that we are the disadvantaged partner.
So, for airline owners, we are genuinely not committed to it because it is a policy that does not put Nigeria first. If the USA as a big country is putting USA first, why can’t we put Nigeria first. We don’t open our doors at a time we can’t compete,” Meggison added.