The federal government said it has assigned air routes to many domestic operators where it has a Bilateral Air Service Agreement. While speaking recently in Abuja, the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, disclosed that the government has reactivated direct flights to Milan, Italy, and developed routes to Brazil and Canada.

He said that some Nigerian airlines have been designated to fly the routes, saying that they need to increase their capacity to take full advantage of the routes.

He said: “We have designated United Nigeria Airlines to fly the Dubai, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom routes and granted Calverton Air, Air Peace the Brazil route. What is left is ramping up their capacity to fulfil the routes given to them.”

Keyamo said that the President had explicitly directed him to develop the Brazil route, given that travel that should ordinarily take seven hours can take four days.

“We want to start Canada flights. We have revived the Milan route that died long ago with Air Italia. We now have direct flights to Milan. We are in talks with the Italian government, but we want a Nigeria Airline to take advantage of this, although a foreign airline is already flying the route,” he stated.

While speaking at the meeting, the Air Peace Chairman, Allen Onyema, said it is not easy to develop a new route. He disclosed that when they started flying to Niger Republic, they were carrying two passengers.

“My daughter had to question me one day and asked who approved Niger? What feasibility studies were carried out? We were doing Abuja-Kano-Niger. At times, we will come back without passengers. People would rather do roads. We did it for about six to seven months; we had to call it off because the only way it would work is if we flew from Douala to Nigeria and then to Niger.”