Just after some airlines and other stakeholders made strong case over their inability to access foreign exchange officially from the Central Bank as opposed to foreign airlines which are given special windows to access forex and repatriate proceeds seamlessly.
The House of Representatives Committee on Aviation has assured that the new legislations on civil aviation will critically examine and as well take care of multiple designations granted foreign airlines in Nigeria.
The Chairman of the Committee Honourable Nnolim Nnaji, while responding to the complaints by airlines and participants at the second day of public hearing on amendment Bills on civil aviation Acts regarding the policies of government that tend to undermine the survival of indigenous airline operators agreed that such arrangement was detrimental to the growth of the industry.
Nnolim stressed that the Committee has taken note of the challenges such policy was posing to the local airlines and would see how the new laws could address the matter.
It was the opinion of the participants that all foreign airlines operating into the country should be given approval to operate to only one destination in Nigeria and any point beyond should be through code share with an indigenous operators.
Recall that the chairman, Honourable Nnaji had earlier voiced his opposition to this same policy, even before the inauguration of the Committee.
The airlines also made strong case over their inability to access foreign exchange officially from the Central Bank while foreigners are given special windows to access foreign exchange and repatriate their ticket s’ proceeds seamlessly.
It was the consesus of the speakers that similar window should be created for local airlines by the Central Bank of Nigeria to enable the operators access enough foreign exchange to fund their aircraft maintenance and acquisition.
The issue of high interest rate on loans was equally raised by the airlines which according to them sometimes would go higher than twenty-frive percent as against the singlem digit interest rate in some other climes.
Hon. Nnaji however, suggested that the airlines and agencies would need to meet with the Committee to iron out areas of conflicts so that the new laws could stand the test of time by the time they are passed.