Nigeria has canceled three extra frequencies granted the British Airways (BA) for alleged violation of the country's directives on their usage.

Nigerian Federal Aviation Minister Babalola Borishade told reporters at the weekend in the capital Abuja that the ultimatum given to BA to withdraw the morning flights expired in June. "So we have no option, but to stop them from operating morning slots," he said.

BA was given the additional morning frequencies last summer to solve the problem of overbooking which had left Lagos-London and Abuja-London passengers stranded at both airports.

"In fact, the airline violated our directives and went ahead to still operate the morning schedules, which contravened our agreement," he noted.

Borishade said the cancellation followed the breached of the agreement reached on how the extra frequencies should be used and the period it would last.

"Hence, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) grounded one of the British Airways aircraft in Lagos, last month for not heeding to our warnings," he added.

The decision to cancel the additional frequencies may affect many passengers who had booked with the airline to travel to London during the summer.

BA operates 14 weekly flights covering Abuja and Lagos. Nigeria signed air services pacts with some countries, but it does not have its own airlines to fully reap the benefits of the Bilateral Air Services Agreements (BASA) with those countries.

There is also no reciprocity between foreign carriers and their Nigerian counterparts as the nation has not designated a second carrier on some lucrative routes such as London, Dubai, Jeddah, Johannesburg and New York.

Nigeria only recently designated Virgin Nigeria, a Nigerian- British joint venture set up and put into operation last year, to fly some of the routes but the absence of a second national carrier has denied the country of billions of naira (1 U.S. dollar is equivalent to 130 naira) through capital flight.

Source: Xinhua