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| RwandAir |
• Carrier may withdraw new A330 from Nigeria
Fake entry visas carried
by Nigerians travelling to Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, has cost an African
carrier, RwandAir, a penalty in excess of US$20 million (₦8 billion) in the
last six months.
The Guardian Nigeria report continues:
The
fake visas, coupled with fictitious online bookings, are considered as
infractions that warrant penalty by international aviation rules guiding the
Global Distribution System (GDS), and borne by the conveying airline.
A
GDS is a network operated by a company that enables automated transactions
between travel service providers (mainly airlines, hotels and car rental
companies) and travel agencies. Multiple reservations also attract multiple
charges against the airline.
For
every passenger that arrives in Dubai without valid visa or forged papers and
ultimately turned back at the port of entry, the airline pays a penalty of US$30,000
(₦1.2 million) for the Advance Debit Memo (ADM) issued per passenger.
Also,
the airline is considering the withdrawal of its new Airbus 330-200 that was
recently deployed to the Lagos route over low patronage, as recession is making
it difficult to fill the 240-passenger capacity aircraft.
Recall
that the Kigali-based airline is one of the foreign carriers making waves on
the continent, with heavy reliance on Nigeria for its market. With Nigeria
supplying the lion share of its total passenger supply for 2015, the airline
had deployed two new A330-200s to the Lagos routes.
Plans
were in the offing to bring in the third aircraft this December for the
passengers heading to China, India and other countries.
A
Sales Executive of RwandAir, Henry Aaron, said it was regrettable that the
airline had paid US$20 million from July till date for the mistakes the airline
knows nothing about.
Aaron
said the penalty imposed on the airline was due to the “smart activities” of
its passengers and their cohorts in Dubai, who are playing all gimmicks to
outwit the airline’s clearance to board.
Aaron
explained that there are some “smart guys” in Dubai processing working visas
for wiling Nigerians. At the point of booking, the visas are genuine, but would
have been cancelled from the system and become fake before the passenger
reached Dubai airport.
“It
is a smart move. Once it is cancelled, the person has no way of entering. As an
airline that has carried the passenger on a one-way ticket, for every case like
that, we are charged US$30,000 for each passenger. I also have to fly the
person back to Nigeria for free. That is the problem,” he said.
While
the problem is not peculiar to RwandAir, the airline is having more of the
effect as a foreign airline and co-competitor on the UAE market. Emirates and
other UAE airlines also face similar problems, although at minimal rates, but
as home grown airlines, they will always find their way around without paying
penalties.
Aaron
added that the airline even introduced an Okay-To-Board clause to curb the
challenge, but Nigerians still found their way around it. “Okay-To-Board issue
simply means that we collect your visa and working permits 48 hours before you
board and present them to your employer in Dubai to okay before we allow you
board. It is working but our Nigerian guys are so good.
“What
they do is that they would look for someone in the organization, tip the person
to issue and monitor the permit without the knowledge of the employer. Some
hours before the plane is due to arrive; they would extract the permit and
cancel the visa. It becomes a problem for us and we are paying heavily for it,”
he said.
The Guardian learnt that the airline,
in the last five years of operations in Nigeria, had been having the problem,
which escalated this year. The National President of the National Association
of Nigerian Travel Agencies (NANTA), Bankole Bernard, said that the challenges
faced by RwandAir were unfortunate, but would be addressed when travel agencies
and airlines cooperated.
Aaron
disclosed that the airline had suffered a lot of losses in the last few months
paying ADM to the GDS. “At the end of the day, we don’t really have profit to
take home just because we are paying for errors not made by us but by our
travel partners that are making the mistake ignorantly. Between July and October,
we have been paying close to US$20 million to various GDSs as penalties,” adding
that profit margin in aviation is very slim, as at the best of time, it ranges
between four and six per cent.
To cut down on the losses, he said that the airline is introducing US$5 (₦2,000) on each segment of its online bookings. Lagos-Dubai return ticket for instance, that is, Lagos-Kigali, Kigali-Dubai, Dubai-Kigali and Kagali-Lagos, will all attract US$20 (₦8,000).
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