I Am Worried About Unreciprocated BASA’s—————Muhtar, NCAA Boss

 

…Puts Total Value Of Ticket Sales For 2015 At N385. 9B

…Gives January To October 2016 Sales As N330. 5

The Director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Capt. Muhtar Usman, has stated that he was worried by the fact that Nigeria has not been able to reciprocate 95 per cent of the Bilateral Air Service Agreements (BASAs) she signed with 90 countries.

This is just as he put the blame of not reciprocating the BASAs on airlines, who he said applied for the routes but did not reciprocate by operating to these countries.

He revealed this today while speaking at a media briefing to review last year’s activities and acquaint the industry with its direction for 2017 at its Annex at the international wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos.

According to him, “I am really worried. BASA is about airlines. They applied for these routes, they are approved for them but they would not operate to these countries.”

He said that Nigerian air transport industry retained its attractiveness, as there has been an increase in BASA, adding that Nigeria has BASA with 88 countries but that the number increased by two in December 2016 to bring the total number of countries the country has BASA’s with to 90.

He gave the names of the additional countries as Seychelles and Bahamas.

The NCAA DG listed the countries that requested for additional frequencies into Nigeria to include: UAE, Netherland, Turkey, Brazil, Qatar and Cote d’ Ivoire.

On industry growth, Muhtar stated that NCAA has received 18 new applicants for Air Operators Certificate (AOC), adding that AOC certification process was ongoing.

On passenger movement for 2015, he disclosed that airlines carried 42,000 daily and experienced 700 flights daily while in 2016 airlines also carried 42 passengers daily and 597 flights daily.

Statistics released by NCAA showed that passenger movement   for 2015 from January  to September  2015  for domestic  passengers stood at  8,130,568 and that the number of  domestic flights  was 202,352 while  international passengers for January to September for the same year under review was  3,272,331 while the number of flights foreign was  31,493.

With the above figures the total passengers stood at 11,402,899 while the total number of flights was 233,845.

On 2016 passenger movement, Muhtar gave the figure for domestic passengers from January to September 2016 as 8,090,816 while the number of domestic flight was 130,745.

On the other hand foreign passenger movement from January to September 2016 according to NCAA was   3,272,331 while the number of flights stood at          33,099.

According to NCAA the total number of passengers for 2016 for nine months was 11,344,936 and total flights 163,844.

Muhtar gave the total value of ticket sold in 2015 from January to December as N385, 909,897,028.80 while the total for 2016 from January to October N330, 548,324,796.84

Meanwhile, the NCAA boss said that the agency will continue to prioritise training of NCAA personnel and that it will remain key project.

He added that all agency staff must be trained locally or abroad where applicable

The agency, he stated would accelerate the next generation of professional and that there would be industry replacement for ageing agency personnel.