Foreign airlines may stop flying into Nigeria, AFARN warns

The Association of Foreign Airlines and Representatives in Nigeria (AFARN) has warned that with the continued withholding of foreign airlines’ ticket sales in the country, some of them may stop flying into the country.

The President of AFARN, Mr. Kingsley Nwokoma who disclosed this at the weekend, appealed to the government to ensure the full release of the airlines’ trapped funds in the country as a form of respect to BASA arrangements.

He said it was high time the Federal Government sat down with the affected airlines to reach an agreement on how to facilitate the repatriation of the funds which are now over $600 million.

“The truth is that there is a BASA agreement. We are even lucky that foreign airlines still come to this country because if smaller countries can respect agreements, there is no reason we should not respect agreements. If Air Peace for instance goes to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), South Africa, and air travellers procure its tickets, has Air Peace ever complained that it is not able to repatriate its funds? I have not heard that.

“When Med-View was going to London and Dubai, people were buying its tickets and the airline did not for one day complained about its inability to repatriate its funds. The aircraft you see is a long-term payment. You are having a business with Boeing or Airbus, and the economics have been done that some money is being paid regularly by the operators. This money comes from air tickets.

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Nwokoma emphasized that the federal government may have directed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to pay some parts of the debts to the foreign carriers, but said the debts have continued to climb as air tickets are being sold daily by the airlines.

“This issue will continue until a solution is found by the government. The government should let us know the challenge they are facing and look for a way to address the situation,” he said.

According to a source, two months after the federal government directed the CBN to release the part payment of $265 million, representing almost 50 per cent of the total trapped funds, at least five of the carriers, majorly from Africa, are yet to have access to their funds.

The source regretted that the airlines were still facing the challenge despite the intervention of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) which has been in discussions with the CBN on the matter in the past four months.

He said the CBN had approved about $4 million for it as the first tranche of its $16 million total debts in the country in eight months, however, it said that IATA had intervened on the issue.

However, it was also learned that in a bid to curb the losses, some of the foreign airlines have resorted to payment of the service providers in naira, rather than in dollars.