The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo Friday signed a Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) with Canada.
Keyamo explained that the agreement was not a full bilateral agreement but a code–sharing which is an agreement where two or more airlines market and sell seats on flights operated by another airline, allowing passengers to travel on flights under a different airline’s code.
He stated that Nigeria would designate airline operators to enhance this agreement.
Keyamo noted: “This agreement has come into force today. So it has come into force, we have both signed. We will have to then communicate with our local operators on both sides. Many of them have been actually lining up for this.
“We have actually granted a few approvals to run that route already and it is just for them to take advantage now of this code sharing agreement and for them to begin operations.”
“But now, because we just want to ignite some kind of relationship between both countries, aeronautical relationship, we thought it’s better, it’s best to start with a code sharing agreement for now.”
Keyamo Canadian authorities stating that his counterpart in Canada had signed part of the Bilateral agreement, but in order to save cost, he was signing the agreement in Nigeria.
He said that the agreement would go a long way to further strengthen the relationship between Canada and Nigeria.
Also, the Canadian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Pasquale Salvaggio commended Nigeria government for the BASA agreement.
Salvaggio said: “It is his pleasure to witness the signing of the BASA and expressed the Canadian government readiness to always work with Nigeria in strengthening Bilateral agreements
“Code-share allows greater access to cities through a given airline’s network without having to offer extra flights, and makes connections simpler by allowing single bookings across multiple flights and airlines.
“Most major airlines today have code sharing partnerships with other airlines and code sharing is a key feature of airline alliances.”
