ACCORDING TO EMIEFELE, BASA DOES NOT REQUIRE CBN TO SUPPLY FOREX FOR REPATRIATION.

According to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Bilateral Air Services Agreements (BASA) never required them to supply International Exchange (FX) for the income repatriation of foreign airlines.

Amidst claims that the Federal Government is not following its BASA with foreign airlines over the repatriation of their earnings, this is happening.

For their operations, foreign airlines convert the Naira they receive from clients for their tickets into other currencies. However, they recently claimed that a lack of foreign exchange resources prevented them from completing the exchange through the formal foreign exchange market.

The CBN Governor, Godwin Emiefele, however, asked home governments of international airlines flying into Nigeria to reciprocate by giving Nigerian airlines similar landing possibilities in such countries as a way to lessen the strain for foreign exchange while responding to the airlines' FX demands.

Nigerian airlines wouldn't require foreign exchange for tickets in such circumstances because their only requirement for foreign exchange would be for the importation of aircraft, spares, or services.

The BASA never required CBN to supply foreign exchange for the repatriation of international airline earnings; instead, it said that they might freely get such foreign exchange through the Exporters and Importers' Window.

However, CBN will continue to give airlines priority and will remove the backlog; instead, they should request that their banks receive FX on their behalf from the I & E Window.

Foreign airlines have alerted authorities that they have not yet received $265 million, or more than 50%, of the stranded funds needed to settle pending ticket sales.

“The delay in the repatriation of funds of foreign Airlines in the country, assumed an embarrassing scenario when IATA bared its fangs and labeled our country a debt bearing nation, which brought us knocks to no end,” says Mrs. Susan Akporiaye of the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies, NANTA.

As you are aware, NANTA started visiting foreign airlines to show empathy for their plight and to encourage them to contact the government, namely the Ministry of Aviation and the CBN, in order to quickly find solutions for payment and the release of the imprisoned funds.

The Airlines pulled reduced inventory across the board in between these strangling circumstances, selling at the highest openings as a strategy to cushion their funds being trapped.

As is customary with them, their response, which we can refer to as the “High Fare Pandemic,” is just directed at Nigeria and Nigerians, and it is not visible anyplace else in Africa, not even in nations where they have monies stranded.

It is terrible that Nigerians must spend three to four million naira or more on tickets, and that even on tickets purchased before this problem started, they must pay up to one million naira to reschedule their travel dates.

We demand rationality and a return to the best inventory practices and deployment since this is untenable, exploitative, and adverse to the viability of Nigeria's downstream aviation business.