Nigeria-UAE airport slot row

(Link on Daily Trust)

Just as regular passenger flights between Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) began to gradually pick up following several months of disruption over a row on Covid-19 travel protocol, yet another row broke out over airport slots between Air Peace, a Nigerian-registered airline, and the UAE’s Emirates. 

The Bilateral Aviation Safety Agreement (BASA) between Nigeria and the UAE allows international airlines from both countries to request and obtain airport slots in each other’s international airports. 

However, in the absence of a strong Nigerian competitor, the UAE’s Emirates has for years dominated the lucrative Lagos-Dubai and Abuja-Dubai routes. In addition to UAE-bound passengers, many travellers from Nigeria opt for Emirates to get to their respective destinations across the world via Dubai. 

Emirates maintains two Dubai-Lagos and one Dubai-Abuja flights daily making it 21 flights per week. Also, the Abu-Dhabi-based airline, Etihad equally dominates the Nigeria-Abu-Dhabi route, which further consolidates UAE airlines’ virtual monopoly on the Nigeria-UAE route.  

It was only in 2019 that a Nigerian-registered airline, Air Peace commenced passenger flights to UAE’s Sharjah Airport instead of neighbouring Dubai Airport apparently to save a fortune on airport charges, which are obviously higher in the latter. 

The airline recently requested two additional slots to make it three per week, which the UAE denied. Nigeria retaliated by reducing Emirates slots in Nigeria to only 1 per week. Enraged, Emirates suspended its operations in Nigeria and, of course, Air Peace operations in UAE, which triggered a row that almost affected diplomatic relations between the two countries less than two weeks after President Buhari’s state visit to the emirate. 

Though UAE’s recent allocation of seven slots in Dubai Airport to Air Peace suggests an imminent resolution of the row, the incident highlights the struggle over flight frequency among airlines, which sometimes affect diplomatic relations. 

The UAE has had a similar row with other countries including the United States, Canada and some major European countries whose airlines have accused Emirates of practices inconsistent with free-market values to outcompete them on many lucrative international routes in the US, Europe, Canada and elsewhere. 

They have, for instance, alleged that Emirates enjoys subsidy under the table from the deep-pocketed Dubai government, which has enabled it to offer customers unmatched quality services at unmatched rates at the expense of its competitors. However, Emirates has always denied the charges arguing that its operations are guided by standard free-market practices.

Whatever the case is, Emirates has been able to grow from an airline with only two planes leased from Pakistan in 1985 into arguably the world’s largest international airline with more than 260 planes covering more than 150 international destinations. Equally, its base, the Dubai Airport has grown from a literally glorified airstrip in the desert into currently the world’s busiest international airport handling about 800 flights per day at its peak.  

After all, though airlines compete on quality and efficiency in their struggle to outcompete one another in the increasingly thriving hence equally increasingly competitive airline business, they also engage in under-the-table arrangements and other forms of discreet manipulation to disadvantage one another. Besides, notwithstanding relevant international legal and regulatory provisions, governments the world over favour their respective locally-registered airlines against their foreign competitors. 

Anyway, from the celebratory tone of the Nigerian media and the general public following UAE’s allocation of seven slots to Air Peace, more than the three it had requested, it’s obvious that the underlying aim behind UAE’s action is comprehended only by a few, if at all. That explains why Nigeria’s media coverage of the development simplistically suggests that the UAE has conceded and that Air Peace and Nigeria have prevailed. 

Whereas, it’s probably a trick aimed at frustrating Air Peace out of the Nigeria-UAE route all together eventually. It’s what the Hausa describe as “kora da hali” Because restricting the slots to Dubai Airport only exposes Air Peace to direct and unavoidable competition with Emirates, which the former, of course, may not survive in the long run. Air Peace may not afford sustained operation in Dubai Airport due to high airport charges, which are the reasons why it wants to remain in Sharjah Airport in the first place. 

Faced with this, competing with Emirates in ticket pricing would pose a big challenge to Air Peace considering the disproportionately huge disparity in service quality, efficiency and sophistication between the two airlines. 

Besides, Air Peace cannot maintain seven flights to Dubai per week in the first place. Even if its request for two additional Lagos-Sharjah flights to make it three per week were granted, it may not be able to sustain them after the current seasonal travel peak when the UAE receives the highest number of visitors from all over the world each year.  

Now, it remains to be seen whether or not the Air Peace management and the Nigerian government realise the trick and its implications, and indeed how they would react.