High operating standards, certifications key to attracting global airline partnerships
High air operating standards, attaining and maintaining the International Air Transport Association, IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) certification have been identified as the key factors that could attract international airlines to enter interline agreement, also known as codeshare with domestic airlines in Nigeria.
A codeshare agreement is an aviation business arrangement where two or more airlines share the same flight. Sharing, in this sense, means that each airline publishes and markets the flight under its own airline designator and flight number as part of its published timetable or schedule.
A seat can be purchased on each airline’s designator and flight number, but is operated by only one of these cooperating airlines, commonly called the operating carrier.
BusinessDay’s checks show that no single domestic airline codeshares with foreign airlines operating in the country. Experts say this development could be harmful to the sector, as connectivity remains the major driver of any aviation sector.
Raphael Kuuchi is the Vice-President, International Air Transport Association (IATA) for Africa have said that connectivity not airlines is what Nigeria needs and this can be made possible when airlines codeshare.
“For the mega carriers, they have standards. If an airline wants to partner with you and you realised that the standard of that airline are not up to the standard of your airline, chances are that they may reduce the value of your product. It is a major concern. Secondly, most of the major carriers want the smaller carriers in Africa to have minimum IOSA certification.
“They want you to be able to operate through the IATA clearing house. If I have to sign a code-share with you and all you are doing is to control all your sales directly and you are not in the clearing house, how can I get my money? We need to put a structure in place to really be able to achieve this.
“Because of these, most mega carriers say they don’t want to do any deal unless you come up to that level. That is the simple explanation why most foreign airlines will not go into code-share with African airlines,” Kuuchi said.
Kuuchi disclosed that in the last few years, IATA lost a good number of African airlines, which have come on-board the IOSA register because they could no longer meet up to IATA standards.
BusnessDay checks show that before now, about five out of eight domestic operational airlines in Nigeria were IOSA certified, after two years, a good number have fallen off the list.
Tayo Ojuri, is an industry expert and Chief Executive Officer, Aglo Limited, an aviation support service told BusinessDay that maintaining IOSA certification, operating high safety and maintenance standards and having excellent flight track customers service are basic conditions to attract international codeshare.
Ojuri explained that customers service talks about the service on-board, the service on ground and on time departure.
“For example, Emirates and Qatar Airways are really big airlines and connect several destinations. To attract these airlines to codeshare, domestic airlines must meet up to some basic international standards,” he added.
BusinessDay’s checks show that in a bid to expand network between North America, Europe and India Delta Airline started codeshare with Jet Airways and KLM.
Emirates code shares with Bangkok Airways available on Thai routes and other South East Asian destinations. The airline also code shares with Flybe available on UK destinations.
Etihad Airways code shares with Aer Lingus, Air Canada, Air Baltic to ply Dublin, London-Heathrow, Manchester and Amsterdam routes.
“The fact that some of our domestic airlines are not IOSA compliant is sufficient for the foreign airlines not to codeshare routes with them. IOSA is a global safety standard for all airlines operating international air transportation services. The Abuja Declaration 2012 has made it mandatory for African airlines to comply with IOSA.
“There are also other best practices in international airline operations that go with the codeshare such as the Bill Settlement Plan, (BSP), which is an IATA mode of payment for tickets sold on codeshare routes.
“The truth is that, unlike the foreign airlines that are mostly owned by their government or the public, our domestic airlines are single ownership and they hardly make known to the public nor the regulatory agency, the true statement of their financial accounts or their balance sheet even as demanded by the national civil aviation regulations (NCAR),” John Ojikutu, secretary general of the Aviation Round Table, ART and chief executive officer of Centurion Security & Safety Consults told BusinessDay.
“Aside from the Medview airline that recently got quoted in the capital/stock market, all our domestic airlines are single ownership; which of the foreign airlines that are generally quoted in either London or NY stock market would want to do business with the Nigerian airlines that their commercial business activities are generally not transparent?,” Ojikutu said.
Ifeoma Okeke