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Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia will face the strongest economic headwinds next year and through 2024. That’s according to economists at CIBC expecting high household debt, real estate downturns, and tight labour conditions to strain Canada’s three most populous provinces.

The bank sees real GDP growth slowing to 0.6 per cent nationwide next year, following a 3.1 per cent gain in 2022. Ontario’s economic growth forecast for 2023 is the weakest among the provinces, at 0.3 per cent year-over-year. Saskatchewan is predicted to be strongest, at 1.6 per cent.

“The Canadian economy is facing plenty of headwinds at the moment,” economists Andrew Grantham and Karyne Charbonneau wrote in a report. “However, not all provinces will be impacted equally by these risks.”

For Ontario, they say 2022 was supposed to show above average growth as pandemic-led supply chain problems faded for key sectors like the auto industry. However, rapidly rising interest rates are now weighing on the province’s sizeable housing sector, pushing up borrowing costs for highly indebted households.

It’s a similar story in B.C., where the economists also note a “rapid adjustment” in home sales and the level of prices, in concert with rising interest rates.

“After years of chasing higher house prices by taking on larger mortgages, households in B.C. and Ontario have higher debt levels, and by extension pay the most interest to service that debt,” Grantham and Charbonneau wrote.

“With interest rates now rising on revolving debt, and with term debt coming due having to be refinanced at higher rates, households in these provinces will find their ability to spend on other items being squeezed particularly hard.”

CIBC says labour markets have tightened in all provinces compared to conditions three years ago, led by Quebec. Atlantic provinces were found to have the most favourable conditions, partially due to a high proportion of seasonal jobs.

The bank expects the strongest real GDP growth to come from the commodity-rich provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, owing in part to higher global oil and gas prices driven by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

CIBC says Atlantic provinces continue to benefit from an influx of new residents fleeing unaffordable housing markets in Ontario and B.C. Ontario recently recorded the largest outflow of residents since Statistics Canada started collecting the data.

“This trend, which started during the pandemic, shows no sign of slowing,” Grantham and Charbonneau wrote. “The work-from-home revolution has opened up options to many people across the country, who are no longer tied to a location because of work.”

The Federal Government has brought back 542 citizens who were stranded in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)

The returnees arrived at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja through a Maxair charted flight early Sunday morning at about 4:30 am.

Among the evacuated persons are 79 males, 460 females and three infants.

They were received by a Federal Government team led by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and airport officials, security agencies including National Commission for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), NAPTIP, Nigerian Diaspora Commission, NDLEA, Nigerian Correctional Service, Nigerian Customs service, Port Health Services, NCDC and others.

On arrival, the returnees were screened by health officials, profiled by various relevant agencies and cleared by Nigerian Immigration Service before being given a token of transport fare by NEMA before leaving the airport.

Speaking earlier, NEMA Director General, Mustapha Habib Ahmed who officially received the returnees on behalf of the Federal Government admonished them to learn from their experiences and be law abiding citizens that promote economic growth and positive image of Nigeria.

The NEMA boss, who was represented by the Director of Finance and Accounts, Alhaji Sani Ahmed Jiba, said the Federal Government had approved the evacuation and provision of the token for the returnees to support movement of the returnees back to their homes.

In her remarks, the Consul General of Nigeria in Dubai Ambassador, Atinuke Taibat Mohammed, who accompanied the returnees back on the flight, appreciated the Federal Government for the special intervention in safe evacuation of the stranded citizens back home.

The family of a Nigerian lady, Dinchi Lar, who was allegedly detained by the Dubai authorities over a Twitter post on the ill-treatment of some Nigerians at Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates, has hit the streets of Abuja to protest her detention seeking the Federal Government’s intervention in the matter.

Lar, had in a series of tweets alleged the highhandedness of the authorities of the airport, saying, “I’m at Dubai international airport, myself and some other Nigerians with valid visas are being held in a room hours after arriving with no explanation and no information on what we can do. Please help me. There’s more than 20 of us, here.

“My sister had to go through immigration to get me released. It was a tedious process. Others are still there and I don’t know their status (sic).

“What happens if you have no family here? Nobody knows what is going on,” she added.

In a response to her tweet, the Federal Ministry of Foreign affairs, issued a statement dated Thursday, September 14, 2022 and signed by the spokesperson of the ministry, Mrs Francisca Omayuli, it read, “The attention of the Federal Government of Nigeria has been drawn to a video on the social media, showing purportedly stranded Nigerians, who arrived the Airport in Dubai, UAE on August 29, 2022, but were denied entry into the country, despite having valid visas.

“The Nigerian Mission in Dubai has clarified that most of the supposedly stranded Nigerians were issued with family visas, only to arrive Dubai alone without any family member.

“Consequently, they were denied entry and advised to return to their country and apply for the appropriate visas.

“However, those persons allowed entry into the country have their family members in the UAE. While those who claimed their family members were on another flight, were told to wait at the airport, pending their arrival,” the statement added.

The ministry further advised travelling Nigerians to note and be guided that the Government of the UAE has introduced a new visa regime and has stopped issuing tourist visas to persons under the age of 40 years, except for those applying for family visas.

Following the statement by the release, the reportedly picked the lady up and detained her since September 6, 2022.

According to a graphic illustration posted by the family members and friends who protested in the early hours of Sunday, October 23, 2022, “Dinchi Lar has been detained in Dubai since the September 6 by Dubai Authorities for speaking out (on Twitter) against the bad treatment of Nigerians in Dubai airports…we stand for your release!”

Another tweep, jerrydoubles, tweeted, “It is sad and regrettably heartrending to tell you all that Dunchi was sentenced on 12th Oct 22, to 1yr in jail in Dubai. Her family are devastated and Nigeria didn’t save her.”

Meanwhile, The PUNCH conducted a research about the social media laws of UAE, and a website, Dubai OFW,  expressly stated that, “ranting or sharing hate posts could lead to serious punishment in the country.

“Six months jail term and a fine of AED 25,000 await those who use social networks for the purpose of defamation of or offending another person or attacking or invading one’s privacy.

Another section of the law on the website is Article 29 of the country’s law which spoke on the damage of reputation of the UAE president, Vice President and emirate rulers which attracts the fine of AED 1 million fine plus temporary imprisonment.

The chaos affecting international air travel in the summer has been firmly stowed away, according to UK aviation firms, with a smooth getaway expected in the busiest weekend before Christmas.

Passenger numbers for the biggest carriers and airports will peak at the start of what is for many the October half-term holiday, with easyJet and British Airways confident of fulfilling their schedule, and Heathrow to lift its passenger capacity cap later this month.

Shortages of staff across the aviation sector, particularly in security and ground handling positions, resulted in flight cancellations and delays multiplying in the first half of 2022.

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Airline and union sources said they were expecting a busy week but did not anticipate the overstretch of earlier this year.

Chaotic scenes at airports and various other problems pushed BA and easyJet to pre-emptively cancel thousands of flights during summer, with BA making cuts to the schedule until the end of October.

London Heathrow has warned that aviation’s recruitment challenges will not be resolved before next summer, should pre-pandemic demand return in full, although the airport does not expect passenger numbers this week to near the 100,000 daily limit it imposed on departures.

The cap angered some airlines, notably the Gulf carrier Emirates, when it was announced in July. It will be lifted on 29 October. A spokesperson for Heathrow said: “We have got the resources in place to meet the schedule that we have.”

Discussions are ongoing between the airport and airlines over a potential reinstatement of the cap for a small number of days over the Christmas period but sources said they were hopeful that any limits could be avoided, with an announcement expected at the start of next month.

BA, the biggest airline at Heathrow, declined to comment. Flights to South Africa and Dubai are expected to be among its busiest services this week.

EasyJet said it would operate 900 flights a day from the UK, with Málaga, Palma, Faro, Geneva and Amsterdam the most popular destinations. London Gatwick, easyJet’s main base, is running at about 85% of its pre-Covid capacity, and the airport said it had taken on about 400 security staff in the last three months to ensure a quick passage through its terminals.

Manchester airport, which experienced some of the biggest queues and worst delays earlier in the year, said it was not expecting any problems, after recruiting more than 700 people to work in security and “huge improvements” in the performance of contractors working for airlines in baggage handling.

The AA predicted a quiet half-term on the roads, with traffic peaking on Friday evening and Saturday morning but only a marginal impact from people seeking a getaway. Relatively few people are expected to drive for an autumn break in the UK, with bad weather predicted for much of the week, and many households trying to cut expenditure with the cost of living crisis.

The RAC forecast 11.5m leisure trips by drivers until the end of Sunday – compared with almost 15m for the same holiday weekend in 2021.

No national rail strikes are planned until 3 November, after the end of the half-term holiday, although an RMT strike on Avanti West Coast on Saturday will further slow and disrupt its reduced intercity timetable.

The US supreme court declined on Thursday to stop the Biden administration implementing its $400bn student debt relief plan, a move that will allow the program to start as soon as Sunday.

A federal judge in Wisconsin dismissed the case on 6 October, saying the challengers, a group called the Brown County Taxpayers Association, lacked the standing to sue.

Related: ‘A patronisingly small amount’: Guardian readers on Biden’s student loan relief plan

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On Thursday, the conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett, who oversees emergency appeals from the seventh circuit, which includes the federal judge, declined a request to halt that ruling.

Barrett did so without comment or referring the request to her colleagues for consideration – a signal that the request was not a particularly strong one.

It was a second win for the Biden administration on Thursday. In St Louis, a federal district judge dismissed a challenge to the student debt program filed by six Republican-led states. That US district judge, Henry Autrey, ruled that the states lacked standing to bring the suit.

The Wisconsin case will now follow the normal course of an appeal and head to the US court of appeals for the seventh circuit. It could wind up at the supreme court for the justices to decide on a full briefing.

Biden’s plan cancels $10,000 in debt for anyone making less than $125,000 ra year or $250,000 in a household. Those who received Pell grants are eligible for up to $20,000 in debt relief.

The program, which will cost nearly $400bn, will affect roughly 43 million borrowers, the White House said earlier this year.

The Brown county association, which describes itself as a group of individuals, businesses and organizations dedicated to conservative economic policies, argued Biden acted outside his presidential authority when he created the program this summer.

The group, represented by lawyers from the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (Will), also claimed the program had an “improper racial motive”, violating the constitutional guarantee of equal protection under law because it was designed to assist Black borrowers and “narrow the racial wealth gap”.

Observers say that kind of view of a color-blind constitution is not supported by history.

Earlier this month, the senior US district judge William C Griesbach, a George W Bush appointee, dismissed the group’s request. He rejected the argument that the group had standing to sue because they were taxpayers and said a “substantial question” existed as to whether the group would suffer harm from the program.

A mysterious GPS interference in Texas has forced aviation authorities to reroute flights and close a runway.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is currently investigating the issue with the global-positioning system used by aircraft, though claims that there is “no evidence of international interference”.

Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport temporarily closed one of its runways after GPS signals in the area became unreliable on Monday.

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The possible signal-jamming impacted a 40-mile stretch of airspace, according to an Automatic Terminal Information Service (ATIS) advisory issued by the FAA.

Another advisory issued by the Air Traffic Control System Command Center warned pilots that they may need to revert to using “older ground navaid based arrivals and radar vectors” if their GPS signal was not functioning correctly.

“[Dallas-Fort Worth] is experiencing GPS anomalies that are dramatically impacting GPS,” the advisory stated.

“The cause is yet unknown. The length of this outage is therefore unpredictable and will remain in effect until further advised.”

A service that monitors GPS interference published a map of the impacted region, showing an area stretching right over the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, as well as a second smaller area just north of Wichita Falls.

The interference began at around 1pm local time on Monday, according to GPSjam.org operator John Wiseman, who added that ground GPS signals were also affected.

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A similarly mysterious incident occurred in Denver in January, when local Air Traffic Control issued a notice advising pilots about GPS problems.

The latest incident in Texas did not appear to be related to any military activity, according to Mr Wiseman, nor was it likely to have come from a solar flare due to the limited size of the area impacted.

“GPS uses an extremely low-power signal and can be easily jammed,” he tweeted. “Unfortunately my guess is that we’ll never know what caused this.”

The US travel industry expects this holiday season to be busy enough to make last summer’s turmoil seem orderly.

Airport officials and industry analysts say passenger traffic for the Nov. 24 Thanksgiving holiday through New Year’s is set to reach or exceed 2019 levels, when 93 million people packed US flights. This summer, the desire to resume vacationing and visiting family boosted passenger traffic to about 90% of pre-pandemic levels, according to a Bloomberg analysis of Transportation Security Administration checkpoint data. 

“We’ll all look back on 2022 as the year that most airports really came back in full force,” said Doug Yakel, spokesperson for San Francisco International Airport.

The total number of airline customers in North America this year is projected to reach 94% of pre-pandemic levels, according to the International Air Transport Association. In 2019 -- the year before Covid hit -- US airports handled a record 1.1 billion travelers, according to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, though that number includes people on both domestic and international flights.

The rising demand means fliers will pay the price at the ticket counter: airfare costs around Thanksgiving time are up 43% from last year and 22% from 2019 levels, according to travel booking app Hopper.

As it was in the peak summer months of May through August, holiday travelers are likely to face delays at boarding gates, limited flight availability and luggage snafus. While airports are racing to staff up, airlines still face a shortage of pilots and other workers. Winter weather in the US and the usual increased demand for flying during a six-week holiday window may add to travelers’ woes. 

United Airlines Holdings Inc. Chief Executive Officer Scott Kirby said along with the insufficient number of pilots, carriers are facing the need for more aircraft as pandemic-induced supply chain problems are causing Boeing Co. and Airbus SE to fall behind in production.

Meanwhile, demand continues to grow, helped by the hybrid model of working from home and office that allows people to travel more, he said in an Oct. 19 interview with Bloomberg Television.

“It’s just a new, permanently higher level of demand,” Kirby said. “That makes every weekend a potential holiday weekend.”

Read more: The 10 Worst US Airports for Flight Cancellations This Summer

Come the holidays, travelers’ stress may depend on their departure and arrival locations. During the summer, airports in Miami, Las Vegas and Orlando saw the biggest increase in traffic. 

The number of travelers passing through Miami International Airport jumped 13% in May, June and July compared to the same period in 2019, according to an analysis of airport passenger data from the top 20 US airports compiled by Bloomberg. The vacation and business hot spot had the biggest increase, the data show. 

For now, both San Francisco International and Los Angeles International Airport remain about 25% below pre-pandemic traffic levels. Flights to Asia, particularly those to China and Japan, have been reduced by Covid travel restrictions and geopolitical tensions, LAX Chief Executive Officer Justin Erbacci said in an interview. 

Still, LAX will deploy extra air traffic controllers, guest experience teams and other staff to manage what is anticipated to be the biggest holiday travel season since the pandemic began, said Heath Montgomery, director of public relations. 

“I would be surprised if we do not set a post-pandemic record at some point this winter around Thanksgiving or Christmas,” Montgomery said.

Officials in other cities are forecasting air traffic growth from large events during the holiday period. Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, having broken passenger records this summer, is preparing for the Consumer Electronics Show in January, said Rosemary Vassiliadis, director of aviation. CES drew in 171,000 attendees right before the pandemic.  

While scientists predict that at least one variant of the virus will lead to a new wave of infection sometime this year, air travel industry experts say the roll out of vaccines and other safety measures mean travel is likely to stay high.

“People who haven’t had family holidays in some time -- this year, they’re just gonna go for it,” said Bill Wyatt, executive director of Salt Lake City International Airport. “I expect a very busy season.”

Heathrow has said it will remove its cap on passenger numbers from October 30 but warned it could be reintroduced on some of the busiest days to avoid travel chaos over Christmas.

The airport operator, which on 30 October is due to lift the current 100,000 passenger per day cap introduced during the summer holiday travel chaos, said it was in talks with airlines over a cap on “peak days in the lead up to Christmas”.

“We are working with airlines to agree a highly targeted mechanism that, if needed, would align supply and demand on a small number of peak days in the lead up to Christmas. This would encourage demand into less busy periods, protecting the heavier peaks, and avoiding flight cancellations due to resource pressures,” it said.

Europe’s busiest airport also admitted it is still 25,000 staff short to cope with passenger numbers at peak times.

Heathrow said demand had grown over the summer but had not fully recovered. The airport expects total passenger numbers of between 60m and 62m in 2022 – around 25% fewer than in 2019.

“Headwinds of a global economic crisis, war in Ukraine and the impact of Covid-19 mean we are unlikely to return to pre-pandemic demand for a number of years, except at peak times,” the business said.

Heathrow revealed underlying losses of £442m in the year to date “as regulated income fails to cover costs, adding to the £4bn in the prior two years”.

Speaking on BBC radio 4’s Today programme, Heathrow’s chief executive John Holland-Kaye said: "We don’t want to have a cap at all, we want to get back to full capacity as soon as possible. The reason for having a cap is to make sure we keep supply and demand in balance. It was absolutely the right thing to do over the summer.

"It’s been a better summer than people had expected. The service was much better than people expected, almost back to 2019 levels, based on the feedback people give us. The passenger numbers were also better and we went from being one of the quietest airports in Europe to the busiest airport in Europe. Unfortunately we are still loss making but I hope if we can get the right regulatory settlement that can change. But it’s not been easy, it’s definitely been challenging."

by Michael Wakabi | Oct 26, 2022 | Airlines | 0 comments

Through July 2022, Nigeria and Zimbabwe were very unpopular with the airline community. The two countries held $565 million of the $1.4 billion in airline revenues trapped in Africa. Globally, 11 countries in Africa accounted for 78% of the $1.8 billion in airline revenues blocked in different parts of the world.  However, the international airline lobby IATA now has reason to smile. The two countries have made astounding progress, settling the bulk of their bills. Nigeria and Zimbabwe clear bulk of blocked airline funds 

According to Kamil Al-Awadhi, IATA’s Vice President for Africa and the Middle East, Zimbabwe had by early September cleared 90% of its’ bill, while Nigeria, which in August released $265 million of the $465 million it owed, was making good progress with a payment plan that also covered projected monthly accruals. 

“Nigeria was the highest defaulter globally, but after we went through rounds of talks, the message got through and they started with a $260 million payment and they followed through almost immediately,” says Kamil.  “They settled more than paid 50% and if some airlines did not get their money, it is because they did not submit their bills in time,” he added, saying he hoped Nigeria to clear the backlog by the end of October.  

Nigeria was in the news last August when Emirates threatened to suspend services to the country by September 1 if its funds amounting to $85 million at the time, were not released. 

Zimbabwe, which owed $100 million, exceeded IATA’s expectations when they settled 90 % of their bill and committed to a payment plan that covered monthly additions and the backlog. 

“They have done beautifully. I commend the Zimbabwe government for doing so well. They were receptive from day one, showing us their numbers, came up with payment plan and paid 90% as soon as they had the cash,” says Kamil. 

Nigeria and Zimbabwe are, however, only part of the headache. There is still $835 million to recover with some double-digit defaulters such as Algeria ($96 million), Eritrea ($79 million), and Ethiopia ($75 million).   

“We have some countries that I will give the benefit of the doubt and go through another round of negotiations again, to explain to them the detrimental effects this will have on their economies down the road and the possible consequences other countries and airlines will take against them,” Kamil says, emphasizing that cash strapped carriers, many surviving on loans and government credit, should be paid if they are to remain afloat.  

By Wole Oyebade

• Only Ethiopia Airlines bid for the new national carrier • How 49% ownership, controlled by foreign interest will rob Nigeria of BASA routes • Stakeholders: It is another private interest masquerading as the national carrier  • Project to mimic Virgin Nigeria’s mistake 

Barring any change in plans, Nigeria will have a new national carrier in December, though there are still concerns about its planned operating model and choice of technical partner.     The new airline, already christened Nigeria Air, will begin domestic flight operations with three aircraft, leased from Ethiopia Airlines (ET), and operated by Ethiopian pilots and crew.     A top official in the Ministry of Aviation said the working partnership between Nigeria and ET to kick-start “the best national carrier Nigeria has ever seen” was already at an advanced stage.     Aviation stakeholders, however, shared none of such optimism. Yesterday, they lamented the project’s lack of transparency on funding and the real owners, wrong choice of partnership with a competitor that allegedly has “aviation colonialism” as its continental agenda, as well as zero consideration for local operators and national interest.

    The arrowhead of the project and Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, had last month announced that Nigeria Air was on its way to reality following the completion of a three-month-long Request for Proposal (RFP) under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) Act and a painstaking selection process.     Sirika said: “After a careful, detailed and Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC)-governed selection process, ET Consortium has been selected as the preferred bidder, offering an owner consortium of three Nigerian investors: MRS (46 per cent), FGN owning five per cent and ET 49 per cent, being the dominant stake.”     Aviation Ministry sources, however, confirmed that Ethiopia Airlines was the sole bidder that showed interest in the new carrier within the three-month bidding frame. The Guardian earlier reported the project as a hard sell to international investors, especially, at a time of global economic crunch.     ET, being the dominant largest fleet airline on the African continent, already has similar partnerships and share capital in the aviation sector of seven African countries – Chad, Togo, Cote d’Ivoire, Zambia, Malawi, Guinea, Mozambique and DR Congo.

    And to start up in Nigeria, ET is expected to deploy three Boeing 737-800 on domestic routes with Ethiopian crew, contrary to earlier approval by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to dry lease three aircraft that would be flown by Nigerian pilots, and crew and create jobs.     Stakeholders, at an Aviation Town Hall Meeting, hosted by Avaero Capital, yesterday, described the skewed partnership as oddly familiar, targeted at Nigerian long-term interest and should be aborted.     Secretary General of Aviation Safety Round Table Initiative (ASRTI), a think-tank group of local aviation, Group Capt. John Ojikutu described the national carrier project as “an adulterated wine in an old skin.”     Ojikutu reflected that the problem of packaging a government-owned airline under a national carrier toga started with the military era. Unfortunately, he said, the current model of partnership with ET, is not any different from the then Nigeria Airways failed partnership with British Airways and South African Airways, and also, the making of failed Virgin Nigeria.  

  “Now, we are repeating the same mistakes of bringing in our competitors into our own Bilateral Air Service Agreements (BASAs). It will not work or give us any advantage. I had followed the plan to establish the new national carrier until it dawned on me in November 2019 that we are going the way of establishing a government carrier,” Ojikutu said.     In place of a “government-owned” carrier, he advocated two flag carriers from local operators, to service both the continent and beyond. He said Nigeria should ideally look for foreign technical partners to support the two flag carriers, but they should come from places like Canada and Australia that have no competing interests with Nigeria on the BASA routes.     Ojikutu’s worry is not unconnected with the BASA rules that were invoked against Virgin Nigeria’s (VN) operations that prevented it from flying Nigerians to the United States. Since the British carrier, Virgin Atlantic (VA), owned the dominant stake in VN, its (VN) Lagos-U.S. operations were seen as VA attempting to gain entry into the U.S. through the back door.     “We are now making the same mistake by giving the dominant ownership and control to a foreign airline. We are going to have a lot of problems flying internationally with ET’s operations and control. Also, we have already given ET four destinations in Nigeria. Are we going to stop that or our national carrier will be competing with it and sharing the earnings at our four international airports? It will not work,” Ojikutu said.  

  Chairman of West Link Airlines Limited, Capt. Ibrahim Mshelia, reckoned that a new national carrier was meant to be a good idea for the country, which he also advocated at the beginning of this administration.     However, “in so far there is a hidden interest and lack of transparency as we have seen, this project is bound to suffer, and add more to our problems.”   Mshelia said the Federal Government should re-concentrate efforts on addressing local issues and work transparently within the industry and for Nigerian interest.     He said: “There is no way ET will set up a Nigerian carrier that will be in competition with itself. I had expected that the new national carrier would have some of our local carriers as its partners. I expected to see an airline like Air Peace owning a 25 per cent stake. But what we are seeing is ministry staff at the forefront of the project. Who are they representing? We don’t know, but we need to know the real owners of Nigeria Air. This is just another airline.  

  “For me, the national carrier project is a good one. But we should also take the local aviation bull by the horn by reducing the burden of local operations to make the business environment better and be able to have competitive tickets in the region. Our tickets are more expensive in the region because we pay too many taxes and charges here.     “If we want to have robust aviation, we must also follow global best practices. Foreign airlines get their funding at 1.5 to three per cent interest rates and spread over 25 years. Until we can do that by way of support for local airlines, we would keep having problems and complaining that local airlines cannot compete,” Mshelia said.

Former Managing Director of Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Capt. Roland Iyayi added that the idea of a new national carrier, after the defunct Nigeria Airways, appeared promising at a time the African continent was walking the tightrope of a Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM).     Iyayi said while it was expected that the Nigerian government would support and prepare indigenous carriers to optimise both local and continental potential, the aviation handlers had chosen to give away the sector to Ethiopians

  He said to accord unfettered access to a co-competitor in the name of technical partnership “smirks of deceit and the entire process opaque, with no strategic sense in it.”   Iyayi, who is the CEO of Top Brass Aviation, said the ET partnership would totally decimate the domestic carriers.

“The moment you enter into the partnership, you are encouraging cabotage. What they will want to do is to penetrate the local market by lowering fares to fight domestic carriers. Once the local operators have failed, they will have a monopoly, which is not a welcome development for the consumer.   “I expected the government to have studied Vision 2025, now 2035 of ET. What they have done in anticipation of SAATM is to dominate the African market, which should be our primary objective too. We have a market that no one else has on the continent. ET has partnerships in eight other countries in Africa. Now they have 135 planes. They have also said that they will increase the fleet size to 250 within the next five years, to go into all the domestic markets that they have footprints in. Nigeria, now inclusive.

  “What they are trying to do has been called aviation colonialism of Africa. Is it that our government is not in the market to see all of this and understand the clear strategy? Since we are going to borrow three airplanes that are surplus to their requirements, are we not going back to the Virgin Nigeria experience? It was clear that Virgin Nigeria was Virgin Atlantic by proxy.”   On funding the project, The Guardian earlier reported that the project has racked up appropriation votes of N14.65 billion from 2019 to 2022. The Minister recently denied the figures, saying only N400 million had been approved thus far.   Though the government plans to own only a five per cent stake, another estimate showed that the government proposed N7.45 billion for the national carrier in the last three years.

For 2023, the government is proposing N1.3 billion, with N700 million as ‘working capital’ and N200 million as a consultancy fee.

  Principal Manager, of Avaero Capital Partners, Sindy Foster, said it is odd that a service provider would enter into a partnership with the government to compete with their customers.   “I don’t know in which country that is allowed. You cannot be buying shares in other airlines and potentially put your customers at a disadvantage, who have been loyal for many years. We understand the need for a national carrier, but the way it is being carried out leaves the local airlines at a disadvantage deliberately.   “Local airlines have been suffering for a long time. The government is only fixing the runway at the 11th hour. We are having forex and aviation fuel issues that are not being addressed. If you are already part of their problem, then you should not be entering into an agreement with another airline. That is not a level playing field,” Foster said.   Chairman of the United Nigeria Airline (UNA), Dr Obiora Okonkwo, also agreed that the project is reminiscent of another policy flip-flop by the government that on one hand encourages local investors to come into aviation, and on the other hand allows much latitude to foreign interests to kill local businesses.

  Okonkwo, who is also the spokesperson of the Airlines Operators of Nigeria (AON), said the popular narrative of the ministry is to demonise the local operators that they cannot justify why Nigeria needs national carrier and foreign technical support.   “But that is not true. How much support did these local airlines get from the government to be able to compete and emerge strong? That we have survived without government support is a credit to our resilience and we should be commended. I think the national carrier design of wet leasing three aircraft is an insult to Nigeria and our local operators. A new national carrier should be talking of 10 to 20 brand new aircraft orders, while local carriers are already placing orders for 30. Not doing that is a shame.   “I see a lack of genuine interest in the agenda. Mr President is probably supporting the project because he was told that Nigeria will not be putting a dime into it. But no one is talking about what Nigeria will be losing. What we will lose is the private sector investments in aviation. We have not seen anything Nigerian in this plan and it should not be allowed to fly,” Okonkwo said.