 Welcome back to The Breakfast in Plastivia Africa. Time for us to head straight to our second conversation. Now we will be looking at the federal government's restricting airlines from the United Kingdom, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and to help us understand the dynamics surrounding all of this elitist Amadou will be joining the conversation. Good morning, elitist Amadou. Good morning. Alright, so let's just get straight to the crux of the conversation. Now we remember that not too long ago, the United Kingdom put Nigeria in that red list. I mean, if you look at the entire continent, Africa was almost represented. And if you want to begin to compare the number of countries that have actually had the cases of the Omicron variant, some of them were not on the red list. And that has generated a lot of conversation within the continent and also in Nigeria. Now some peasants on the other hand also said, well, the federal government should also be looking at retaliating this particular gesture. And not long again, we have actually seen the government retaliating. You'll also have people saying, this is totally unnecessary. It is uncalled for. And why should we be acting at this point in time, knowing that we are a developing nation, and we understand the dynamics of losing all of these peasants coming into our country. But I'd like to share your thoughts on that. First, what do you make of the ban, you know, restricting or the restriction by the federal government? Well, thank you. Good morning. I think the whole thing is connected with the new wave of the COVID virus, which is the Omicron variant. I want to align myself with other international players who have called for caution in the ban of international operations into countries like Ayata has won, because the industry is barely coming out of a difficult situation after the first second wave of COVID and we're in the process of recovery. So a ban of this nature without actual empirical scientific data to prove that the measures that have been put in place for the first and second wave to combat the first and second wave are insufficient. In the absence of that, I think the ban is more of a knee-jerk approach, response to issues of international issues like this. For me, Nigeria is merely reacting to, I think, what it felt unfair international diplomacy by those nations that have banned applied operations from Nigeria into their own territories. But if we are to look at it objectively, aero politics aside, we should be driven by data, scientific data, rather than this knee-jerk approach to the management of the current crisis. So what would be the implication of all of this now to our economy? Well, it's a very sad situation because you know we are in a very peak period of operations as the December period, people will be travelling all over the globe into and out of the country. They are the ones to be at the brunt of this decision because you can imagine a lot of them might have fixed their flights several months back for this period and with the current ban let me speak about the situation between Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates. You know the market size of Emirates Airlines, it's a big size chunk of the market it currently occupies and like I said with this current ban it's going to be very difficult for a lot of Nigerians who are scheduled to come home to make it this December. So for me it's a minus to the economy on the brink because of recovery, minus to the industry and it would cause irreparable damage to the travelling public. All right, like you rightly said in the wake of the COVID-19 and all of that, one sector of the economy that came crashing literally from the skies is the aviation sector. In 2020 it was really, really down completely. Aviation is supposed to stay afloat and fly above. That's just to put it literally. But then again, from what we understand here right now, before this particular development we saw UK flights coming into Nigeria, did they really have enough moral grounds or rights to actually fly the airlines into Nigeria when they actually had restricted them to Nigeria? Well, you must know that this flight operation is regulated by the existing bilateral air services agreement between Nigeria and the respective states, including the UAE. For me, I think there's something happening that is outside of the norm. When there are issues connected with the implementation of the BASA, usually there's a clause there in the agreement that makes for states, one state, to call for discussions with a view to resolving that particular problem. But here we are, it's a BASA issue and states are taking positions that are outside the prescriptions of the BASA with regards to dispute settlement. So for me it's a BASA issue and if you read the letter the Emirates wrote to Nigeria, the Nigerian authorities, they referred, they did state there in that this is a BASA issue that they thought is within the BASA framework and that mechanisms are there in for the resolution. But here we are, they were the ones that first started rescuing air peace to making one flight into Dubai and they are the ones now resorting to mechanisms within the BASA for dispute resolution. But that's a head start, it's a very important letter, the route. So my mind is that we should leverage on that letter and open up discussions with the UAE authorities with a view to resolving this problem. Alright, you have mentioned that Nigeria is just merely reacting and we shouldn't have taken that position by restricting airlines from these countries to Nigeria. But what approach do you think Nigeria should have taken or should take, I mean being that this actually came first from these countries? Let me put it in perspective. I didn't say Nigeria was wrong in reacting. I did say this country's other countries started first rather than follow the normal channel for resolving issues of this nature. It started by placing ban on Nigerian Airlines, which Nigeria to which Nigeria responded. So I'm not saying Nigeria did wrong. We have a duty to protect our airlines, to give them every necessary support to fly to whatever these nations are designated to operate under the BASAs. What I think is that what I'm saying essentially is that decisions of this nature should not be taken without scientific proof. There are well laid out measures internationally or operations of airlines under COVID and I have not seen any publication. Nobody has come out to tell the world that the measures that have already been put in place are not enough, or that the Omnicron variant is resistant to the measures that have been put in place, i.e. you must have a PCR negative to fly or you are fully vaccinated. Two, you must use hand sanitizers. You must use face masks while onboard the aircraft. And several health measures that other health measures have been in place, unless this is proven to be inefficient or inadequate in addressing the new variant. I think states should have taken up the positions they have taken now. This is the root cause of the problem. And I think it's high time in view of the calls from IATA and other international airline organizations for states to sit back and review their pronouncements. In the interest of the development of international simple aviation, because if we don't do that, I can assure you this is going to affect the global aviation industry in the negative. Amado, let's look at this holistically, just the Putin aviation industry perspective. Do you think that with all of this development, it's high time Nigeria reviewed some of this pact, the ministerial pact. For instance, all that is happening with the Emirates airline and of course Airpeace and all of that. If I have to put it right or carry the entry into Nigeria and to their country, because most times we seem to be under their beck and call when they are not given as a commensurate right like we deserve. Don't you think it's high time some of this pact has been reviewed? From what we know now, this particular ministerial approval granted Emirates have been taken away. So what do we do going forward? Yeah, Justin, I think if you look at the bilateral deeply, there's this thing that a lot of commentaries that Nigeria had aired in granting these nations the respective frequencies they have under the buses. I think that is incorrect because the buses are reciprocated, what is based on reciprocity, whatever they give to us, we give to them. Now, the problem has been this. We've been able, we've been unable as a nation to develop or evolve strong airlines to utilize the bilateral rights. And once there are no airlines from the Nigerian side consummating these buses, what you do as a state, you create excess load factor on the foreign carrier that is doing its own consummating its own rights. And that in essence creates a problem because most of those who are traveling are Nigerians. In the absence of the reciprocal flights, are you going to stop the other carrier from coming or asking for additional frequencies? And these requests for additional frequencies are scientific in air transport economies. The factor of the matter is that once an airline is averaging 70, 80, 85% load factor, there's a tendency that is doing full flights most of times. And when they come asking for additional frequencies, you have to grant, you are under obligation to grant because it is your people who are traveling. And the fact is that you don't have any airline to do these reciprocal flights. You recall that Virgin in Nigeria started the Dubai flights and stopped Emirates, even I think Arik started and stopped. The reason is that if you are not fully prepared in terms of a fully grown airline with commercial arrangements with other airlines like Co-Chair, Interlines and other things, I can assure you the Middle East routes are not your top because these airlines, the Gulf carriers and other international airlines that operate through that route, have network of arrangements and you cannot between point to point from Lagos to Dubai and expect to have a good size of the traffic. Because most Nigerians who pass through that route are either businessmen who go to Asia Pacific by their cargo, their goods, they put them on board the airline straight to Lagos. Would you want a Nigerian to buy his stuff and come to Dubai, stop in Dubai and then fly in Nigerian carrier? I think it is not feasible. So we need to do a lot and this is high time for us to invest in strong national airlines, whether fly carriers or national carriers as it were. And it has become more challenging with the signing of Aftar and Satim. Satim has today, when fully implemented, would open our skies fully like the Eastern North African variant of open skies agreement. There wouldn't be any restrictions, there wouldn't be any capacity restrictions. You can designate as many airlines as you can as a state. The markets become a common single domestic markets for all carriers. So I think the challenge before Nigerian carriers or Nigeria as a state is to invest or create that enabling environment for strong airlines to evolve to be able to compete with their international counterparts. There has been calls that airlines should merge. The laws do not allow NCA to coerce airlines into mergers. Mergers are regulated by other entities settled by law in Nigeria. And usually you force mergers when airlines are on the stock exchange market and they are not performing very well. You now step in to intervene to get them to come together to be stronger so that investors' monies do not go down the drain. So how many of our airlines today are on the stock market and even those that have gone to the stock market, how have they fare? So I think our problem is more of a national issue than blaming the international carriers for the frequencies that they presently operate into Nigeria. There's another issue we should look at, the conflict of laws which is impeding the flow of FDIs into our sector, the aviation industry. The NIPC Act says a foreigner can own a business 100% in Nigeria, but the sectoral legislation like the Civil Aviation Act says for you to do business in Nigeria as an airline, majority stake should be held by Nigerians or its nationals, by Nigeria or its nationals. Now the question is that how many people have a deep pause to invest in airline business? Are they ready to do that? Do we have the capacity considering what they experience in the industry today? So we need to review some of these laws so that we can encourage foreign direct investment into our nation. Because these are some of the laws, legislations that are restricting the entry of capital for investment in our sector in Nigeria. So with all of this now, what would you say is the effect of ticketing and orders in the aviation sector? I think ticketing is a product. It's a product and the regime of ticketing in Nigeria is deregulated. The authorities do not regulate tickets, but then I think what? All right, we seem to have lost the... What the... Yeah, illiterate. Hello, illiterate, if you can hear us. Yeah, basically the question would be since the whole travel restriction, what has been the multiply effect as regards to ticketing and of course order, value chain that has to do with aviation, since most people are actually stranded here in Nigeria and of course those who should have been coming to Nigeria for transaction. Oh, I get you now. So the fact is that like I said, it is the passengers, the Nigerian passengers, those who have scheduled their flights into Nigeria within this period and would bear the brunt. You know, it's a supply and demand thing. Where the demand is higher than the supply, the fares would go up and more so at this peak period. Any airline ticket you are buying at this period certainly will be near twice the amount you would have bought before. So and with the reduction in this supply, that is the stoppage of Emirates and other airlines into the country, you know the supply, the size of airlines coming into the country would shrink. So certainly it would affect fares at this period regrettably. So with all of this restriction, do you think that we have lost money in terms of revenue and how much have we lost or how much are we going to lose? Of course we are losing money and we are going to lose money until this situation is restored. Recall that Emirates has not been flying into Nigeria for some time. For each flight that comes in, there are lots of payments that are made to relevant authorities, landing, parking, handling ground handling charges, air navigation charges, ticket sales charge and all this. So you can imagine with the stoppage of these operations, the industry regulator and service providers would fill the brunt in the negative. So for me... How many liters can you hear us? A lot would be lost in three charges that would have come to the airline and other... Can we actually estimate? Can we put a figure to it? Can we estimate any figure? Well, I don't want to play with figures because you know the industry is in a recovery state. Most of the airlines are just throttling to capacity after the negative reduction of flights over time. So I don't think I'm in a position to play with any figures here. Alright, let's still talk about what we have as per capacity COVID-19 arrivals to Pacha as we round off this particular session. COVID-19 has been around for over a year and indeed, like I said before, the aviation industry actually came crashing last year. So far, how would you say we have done vis-à-vis protocols for our arrivals at the Pacha, bearing in mind the pandemic and so far? How would you say we've done? Well, let me see. Nigeria has done very well. In fact, Nigeria was recorded to be the first African country to put together a protocol, detailed protocol for the combat of COVID-19 virus. In fact, Nigeria got recommendations from IKO. Nigeria, the regulatory authority has gotten several recommendations and awards for studying performance in the management of the COVID-19 crisis. So for me, the protocols, if you look at recently, the Civil Aviation Authority published new protocols for arrivals and departures from Nigeria. Basically, it is nothing new. It's still the same old protocols that have been placed that have been reinforced. The only new addition is that there is an option as to some jurisdictions. If you are fully vaccinated, you may not need a PTR. Other jurisdictions would require a negative PCR plus evidence of full vaccination for departing passengers. On the other side, the protocols that were relaxed in regards to arrivals have been reinstated. So when you arrive, you have to go through quarantine and do another test before you can be allowed to come out of isolation. Don't you think Nigeria should take the Civil Aviation sector that these are still on arrivals? Because most of them have had cases of when Nigerians travel abroad. Despite the fact that they present COVID and vaccine certificates, they are still required to quarantine for some days before they could actually get into the main flow of the state. A school of thought believes that in Nigeria, it's as though that whatever you come with, you'll just be allowed to ensure that requisite tests and other requirements. What are your thoughts really? I think that is incorrect. I don't want to make generalisation on this issue. Nigeria is associated with everything that is negative. Can I show you that the authorities are doing their best to ensure that the sky is safe in terms of a reduction of the spread of COVID to the barest minimum? I can share with you a personal experience. I went to one of the labs to do a test because I needed to travel just recently. I met some passenger who came there. He was denied the right to board because they found that his test code on his results did not pass through their system. So it's incorrect to say to make a generalisation that people just come in and out without going through the necessary protocols. However, there have been reported cases that offer some untoward practices by some of the authorities, which I believe the government has taken adequate measures to ensure that only passengers who will fill the requirements for entry and exit are allowed to come in and fly as it were. So for me, the measures are working. We want to encourage Nigerians to be patriotic. So you don't have to go and forge a negative PCR because you want to travel. You should be able to subject yourself to the necessary examination before you head to the airport. Alright, we must say a very big thank you to you. We have been speaking about restriction, redness and of course omicron, the fate of the Nigerian aviation industry. And we were joined by Elitius Amado. He's the President of Air Transport Services, Senior Staff Association of Nigeria. We do appreciate your time, Mr. Amado. Thank you, Justin, and good morning. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Alright, it's still the breakfast and plus TV Africa. We'll take a quick break away from aviation. We'll be focusing on the Election Act Amendment Bill, which reports saying that the President has actually refused to sign it. And we turn it back to the National Assembly. We're no more going to do journals again.