For ages, especially since the once prosperous Nigeria Airways sank into oblivion, Nigerian air travellers to foreign countries have routinely suffered untold hardship in the hands of foreign airlines.

The British Airways (BA) has always stood out as the worst culprit. Nigerian travellers have always complained and nobody seemed interested in addressing their grievances.

The situation boiled over recently when British Airways, in contravention of the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) signed between Nigeria and the United Kingdom, unilaterally cut the frequency of flights of Nigeria’s foremost carrier, Arik Air, to London Heathrow Airport from seven to three, while it continued to enjoy its own seven slots on the same route. BA apparently took the step as”retaliation” for Arik’s lower charges, which yielded for the Nigerian carrier a larger and increasing number of customers, some of whom were BA’s regular flyers.

Arik raised the alarm, and for once, the Ministry of Aviation rose in defence of our national interest. BA’s slots were also slashed to three on its weekly London-Lagos route. In addition, BA is now to arrive in Lagos by 6.00 am as opposed to 6.00pm, same as Nigerian carriers, which are required by the British authorities to enter London in time for the start of business everyday. BA is also now to depart for London by 11.30pm.

The Minister of Aviation, Princess Oduah Ogiemwonyi, has also directed that all British carriers, particularly BA, must eliminate the discriminatory regional tariffs, which see Nigeria-bound travellers paying far more than their peers travelling to nearby countries over equivalent distances.

As a result of these steps, BA lobbied the British Prime Minister, Mr David Cameron, to intervene on its behalf. The British leader contacted President Goodluck Jonathan seeking a resolution of the row, upon which the president directed the Minister, Ogiemwonyi, to grant one week extension to BA to enable the two countries iron out their differences.

Even though some commentators, especially experts in the industry have sharply criticised aspects of the measures imposed on BA, especially with regard to the length of time their planes have to stay on ground before returning to London, Nigerians are full of appreciation for the uncommon responsiveness of the federal government to a measure that not only threatened our economic national interests but also added to the longstanding tradition of dehumanisation of Nigeria travellers by BA.

The brazen disrespect for the terms of the BASA by the British side and BA’s treatment of Nigerians as if they are still under their colonial subjugation had to be halted sooner than later. We commend the Nigerian authorities for taking the bull by the horn. We hope by the time the ongoing negotiations by the two sides are concluded Nigerian travellers and national carriers can look forward to fairer and more dignified treatment. That is what good governance is all about.

We join stakeholders in the aviation sector to call for total overhaul of the BASA pacts that Nigeria has entered into with foreign countries, which are known to be generally to the disadvantage of Nigerian carriers. There are abundant evidences that this situation is so because some top officials within our aviation industry are involved in unholy collusion with these foreign interests to the detriment of our national interests.

We therefore urge the federal government to go beyond this tit-for-tat exchange with BA and look into the industry to identify the bad eggs that have made it possible for foreign airliners to hold our people to ransom in flagrant violation of the BASA’s.

More efforts must be applied to ensuring that Nigerians are given courteous services on air routes between some of these Western countries and Nigeria.

We hope this highly commendable proactive response by government to this outrage is not a flash in the pan. We hope it is part of bold step towards repositioning our aviation industry in line with our aspiration to emerge among the most developed economies of the world within the next nine years.