Forget about national carrier, Ojikutu tells FG

The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr. Festus Keyamo has been advised to discard the idea of a national carrier.

Former General Secretary of Aviation Roundtable, Group Capt. Ojikutu said instead the federal government should focus on having two flag carriers.

While a national carrier is owned wholly by the government, a flag carrier is an airline that is subsidised or owned by the country in which it is registered.

For instance, British Airways is not owned by the UK government but is a flag carrier of the United Kingdom supported by the government.

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It would be recalled that Keyamo had last week suspended Nigeria Air, the controversial national carrier project of the immediate past administration.

Ojikutu in a chat with our correspondent said Nigeria must discard the national carrier and work towards having two flag carriers from the existing domestic airlines with one serving regional and continental and the other intercontinental.

According to him, the two airlines must operate the Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) routes and sell 30 percent of their shares to the public.

He also stated that the international airport concessions should include all the domestic airports and none should be left out.

“Government must not take the commercial responsibilities of any aviation commercial service except the responsibilities of the oversight and enforcement of the safety and security regulations and the investigation of lapses in the compliance to the regulations through the NCAA, the responsible authority,” he said.

According to him, the national carrier has become a government carrier and a drainpipe for stealing public funds.

“The era of the national carrier has gone long ago. Even the BA is no longer a national carrier but a flag carrier so are all the American airlines… Government business in aviation today is regulations on safety and security and their oversight and enforcement not commercial.

“Go and ask Air Peace how many times the government has supported it on the routes as the UK or US support any of theirs. Again, I know how many times the US FAA/TSA were here before and after the Delta began operations to Nigeria. I was on one of the NCAA teams on occasion. Delta is a flag carrier not a national carrier. Why would the foreign airlines like Delta, a flag carrier, fly to Lagos and Abuja and Air Peace would be begging for NY or Washington DC or Emirates coming to Lagos and Abuja and Air Peace begging to go to Dubai?

“Those who are making it difficult for flag carriers to be designated are those behind the establishment of the national carrier. Institutional Corruption.

“That is why the government came out with the policy of privatisation, commercialisation and concession in the early late 90s to early 2000s to get the government out of commercial businesses. Please find out what happened to these policies. Political Office holders need something to hold on to so they won’t fall…”