NIGERIA’S BILATERAL AGREEMENTS IN THE FACE OF SAFETY GUIDELINES

Hello and welcome to the blog!

In this post, I will be addressing the privileges and obligations derived as of right per Nigeria's bilateral agreements and in the face of safety guidelines published by the International Civil Aviation Organization in the form of Annexes to the Convention on International Civil Aviation 1944 (CC44).

Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) are technical specifications adopted by the Council of ICAO in accordance with Article 37 of the CC44 in order to achieve "The highest practicable degree of uniformity in regulations, standards, procedures and organization in relation to aircraft, personnel, airways and auxiliary services in all matters in which such uniformity will facilitate and improve air navigation," they do not actually have the same legal binding force as the Convention itself as Annexes are not international treaties. (The implications of this is addressed in another post).

The safety management SARPs are intended to assist States in managing aviation safety risks, in coordination with their Service Providers and to bring their International air transportation to the minimum level of safety to protect lives, properties and other collaterals from harm in line with the recommendations published from time to time.

Having fulfilled the satisfaction of entering into bilateral to ensure the operation of air services between the two contracting States, and having an international obligation to mutually recognize licenses and certificates issued by the other State in line with Article 33 of the CC44, Nigerian counterparts to the various bilateral air services agreement over the past half-decade have continually expressed the dissatisfaction as to the actual right to exercise said privileges.

Basically, Nigerian airlines through their allied association, the airline operators of Nigeria are displeased about the inability to operate the agreed transit routes in various bilateral air service agreements that have been agreed on behalf of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the other government. Of particular mention is the inability to operates on the routes to the gulf areas, the United States of America and Europe (which has now added some Nigerian designated airlines on a blacklist due to the complaint of failure to comply with the minimum international safety requirements as stipulated in the annexes to the CC44. 

The legal authority of the government of the Gulf carriers to expressly prohibit the operation of the routes during scheduled air services have also been placed in question. Although, there is no provisions of the CC44 to allow such unilateral undertaking, it is also not frowned upon as a State remains sovereign and under international law has the legitimacy to decide and take decisions which it deems fit as trite for the safety of its citizenry.

To this end, this post seeks to initiate discussions per the legal implications of the alleged failure of Nigerian carriers to abide by compliance standards as stipulated by the ICAO from time to time and to create an avenue whereby all relevant stakeholder, being the Nigerian civil aviation authority, ministry of transportation and/or aviation, the federal government of Nigeria and the various governments where Nigerian carriers are facing these issues, airlines, airline associations and ICAO to seek to make the aviation sector in Africa, particularly Nigeria once more profitable and enabled to compete on a global plane devoid of salient infrastructural or technical issues.

Despite the efforts of the NCAA to abide by ICAO’s international minimum standards and ensure that these standards are incorporated by all airlines throughout Nigeria, there is still much work to do to raise the safety bar even higher and in order to achieve the reciprocal transit operations as originally intended, Nigeria must go back to the drawing board to trace exactly how and what went wrong in order to achieve the expected growth of African aviation.

Thank you for taking out time to read and Share this post. Should you have any interest in the subject matter and you have proposals you will like to Share on furthering Aviation safety and profitability in the region, please do leave your comment or suggestions via the comment box.

You can also follow my discussions via my LinkedIn account at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayomide-a-jide-omole-062633112 

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