The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr. Festus Keyamo has written to his British counterpart and lodged a formal complaint over the refusal of the British authorities to allow Air Peace to fly to Heathrow Airport.
Nigeria’s flag carrier airline, Air Peace currently flies to a second-tier airport, Gatwick because of the slot system which is beyond the British authorities.
This may lead to a diplomatic row if the Minister remove British Airways to another airport outside of Lagos and may lead to a repeat of the face-off between Nigeria and the United Kingdom when the Nigerian government threatened to restrict British Airways in 2012 to other airports outside Lagos because Arik could not be allowed to remain in Heathrow over slot issues.
In a letter dated August 1, 2024, and addressed to Louise Haigh, the UK secretary of state for transport, Keyamo warned that if Air Peace is not allocated a space at London Heathrow, Nigeria will be forced to “reciprocate” by denying British Airways and Virgin Atlantic slots at the Lagos and Abuja airports.
Although Heathrow is the UK’s primary airport, Air Peace, the Nigerian carrier, currently operates from Gatwick Airport, the secondary airport.
All efforts by Air Peace to get a slot at Heathrow, which is closer to the heart of London, have been unsuccessful.
The Minister had penultimate week said that the Federal Government would write to the United Kingdom to allow Nigerian carriers particularly Air Peace operate to Heathrow Airport.
The Minister who spoke at the League of Airports and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC) seminar in Lagos said Nigeria would no longer allow a situation where the country’s airlines are not allowed to tier one airports overseas in line with the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) saying failure not to allow Air Peace into Heathrow may lead to Nigeria taking British Airways and others to places like Ilorin, Kano, and other obscure places.
He stated that in the absence of a national carrier, the government would support local airlines and give them whatever they need to survive and succeed, hinting, “We should have flag carriers who will make us very proud and that will service our reciprocal right and the BASA that we have but they must make sure they raise the global standards and make us proud.”
His words, “We are working and collaborating with Nigerian carriers to ensure that they are supported. We have already written to the United Kingdom to give Nigerian carriers, especially Air Peace Heathrow Airport, which is a tier one airport, just as we have British Airways Lagos, our tier one airport. We may as well give BA Ilorin to operate to.”
“When we asked for Heathrow Airport, you’re telling us to go to a slot committee. Who does that? Air Peace I can tell you is on its way to Heathrow away from Gatwick”.
We will look into so many agreements that we have that are not working in the interest of our airlines. We need to support them to grow but they must show capacity to reciprocate many of the agreements. Air France flies to Nigeria and no Nigerian airline is flying to Paris. Lufthansa, Delta and a host of others but no Nigerian carrier is operating to Frankfurt or the US.”
South African Airline flies to Nigeria and no Nigerian carrier reciprocates. Nigerian carriers are constrained, which is why you have a high mortality rate of airlines in Nigeria. Over 150 Nigerian carriers have been extinct in the last 35 years, which is very disheartening”.
