By Uche Mbah
In an apparent move to avert a messy diplomatic row, the United Arab Emirate, UAE, has conceded seven slots to Air Peace, the Airline that carries Nigerian imprimatur to the far east country.
It will be recalled that UAE only allowed one weekly flight to Sharjah, a major city of the Emirate, while Emirates Airline is enjoying seven days a week flight to Nigeria.
Air Peace had even requested to fly to Dubai directly but was refused, on the ground that there is no vacant slot.
Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, then, in retaliation, announced that Emirates’ entry into Nigeria has been reduced to one. In a fit of anger, Emirates withdrew its services from Nigeria.
Apart from that, they used their diplomatic contacts to instruct all foreign airlines to stop carrying transit passengers to Dubai as long as they present a Nigerian passport.
But there appears to be no official circular to this effect.
It was believed that the move was to target high seasonal shopping traffic to Dubai by Nigerians shopping for Yuletide-a loss incurred both ways, for Nigeria is said to contribute a higher percentage of capital inflow to Dubai.
But this magazine learned that an official letter to the Ministry of Aviation and Air Peace from UAE yesterday conceded seven entries to Air Peace a week, one entry a day. Besides, they allowed all entries to Dubai instead of Sharjah.
Curiously, this Magazine learned, no copy of the letter was forwarded to the Foreign Affairs Ministry, though it is believed they already have a copy through the Ministry.
It is also expected that Nigeria will reciprocate in restoring the slots to Emirate.
It is not clear, however, whether Air peace, with its limited fleet, can fill up the slots allotted to it – part of the reason that Nigeria always keeps mum in pursuing the Bilateral Air Service Agreement, BASA, equity.
