Nigeria and the United Kingdom are flexing their muscles over weekly flight frequencies between their two airlines, Arik Air and British Airways respectively. The spat has even forced Nigeria’s aviation authorities to launch a review of the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) which it entered into with London and over 60 other countries.
The UK triggered the crisis when it refused to grant adequate landing slots to the privately-owned Nigerian airline Arik at London’s Heathrow Airport.
The action forced Arik to suspend its Abuja-London flights, and to petition the Ministry of Aviation and the National Assembly.
The Nigerian government has retaliated by slashing British Airways’ 14 weekly slots to 10, cutting off four weekly flights on the lucrative Lagos-London route with effect from 8 Nov.
The Nigerian country manager for British Airways, Mr. Kola Olayinka, said in a statement issued here: ‘We are doing all we can to resolve this issue. The matter is now in the hands of the British government which is speaking with the Nigerian authorities.’
In the meantime, the Nigerian Ministry of Aviation has said the planned review of the BASA should not be seen as a negative move, but an action being taken in the national interest.
‘It is not for one country only, it is for all countries,’ the private Punch newspaper Friday quoted an aviation ministry spokesman, Mr. Joseph Obi, as saying of the BASA review.