For more than a year, Yinka Folami has steered the National Association of Nigerian Travel Agencies, a body of over 3,500 members, through some of the most challenging times in the downstream aviation sector. In this interview, the NANTA President speaks candidly about leadership, professionalism in travel agency practice, evolving industry policies, and the burning issues of cross-border trading, dollar sales, and their implications for Nigeria’s aviation landscape. OLASUNKANMI AKINLOTAN brings excerpts

you’ve led NANTA, an association with over 3,000 members, for more than a year now. What has the experience been like managing such a large body of industry players?

It’s been very interesting and, of course, challenging. But the important thing is that we are about 13 in council. The moment our administration came in, we decided to run a collective council. So, you find that there is a lot of delegation that goes on. We put our best foot forward. If we can do it, we better do it. So, it’s not as if I’m the only one leading. It’s the council that is leading. And the council also gets advisory support from the BO team. So, I believe that across both platforms, there is competence to lead the 3,500 members fairly.

Over two decades ago, you established your company. From a professional perspective, how would you assess the aviation sector since then?

Well, the aviation industry is evolving. So, basically, that’s what I would say. I would say that it is evolving. I would say that the pace could have been better, you know. But, obviously, the development of every sector is always a function of who leads that sector, or who is the head. If you place the current Minister of Aviation six years behind, maybe take him back to 2020 or 2018, somebody like this would have had major progress. So, if you backtrack the current minister to maybe six years before he came in, and if he was a person in charge of affairs, the aviation industry would have made so much more progress than we have at the moment.

That is not to say the previous ones did not have their own records and achievements. But the present one is very passionate, and he’s eager. So, he’s quick about a lot of things. One of the things that has saddled the aviation industry in Nigeria, particularly upstream aviation, we are in downstream because we are in sales; upstream is the airlines and their fleet and all of that, one of the things that has saddled the upstream aviation industry in Nigeria is the lease, the ban on Nigeria on leases of aircraft. You know, aircraft are very expensive. Most of these countries that thrive in aviation have access to lease agreements.

But, for a long time, Nigeria had been banned from getting access to particularly dry leases. So, what we have are wet leases, and wet leases are very expensive. What the aviation minister has done in the short while that Keyamo has been here is that Nigeria has been unbanned by many of these foreign players, such as South Africa, the Irish, and all of that. We are expecting that, obviously, local airlines will have better access to dry leases.

Another thing that I believe the government has to look at, and look into, is maybe access to funding. Funding aviation with a three-digit interest rate is difficult. What I would say is that we are evolving. But we are happy that we have the energy of the present leadership in aviation.

There’s a common perception that one can succeed in the travel agency and ticketing subsector with little or no experience. Would you say that’s true?

That’s not true. That’s absolutely not true, except you want to be a council and book anything. There are so many like this. You need the operations expertise, and you need the finance expertise. To run a successful travel agency, you have to be a competent professional manager. And when you say a ‘professional manager’, it’s somebody who spans everything. You have to be a finance person, you have to be a marketing person, and you have to be an operations person. We have doctors who have travel agencies now. We have lawyers and a lot of people who work for the bank at high levels. They own travel agencies now. You have to be a proper manager. And there are some specific operations, tickets, and reservation skills that you need to have. There are certification organisations like IATA and all of that, which are international. You have to acquire those skills. And they develop every time, because airline rules come up every day. So, you have to be educated to be able to follow up on them. And if you don’t follow up on them, one wrong command can set the ticket back. One wrong command can set the tickets back; one wrong command can lead to AGMs. So, it evolves.

And then, secondly, you have a situation where you also have new airlines coming in every day. You have to learn about their product. For every new airline that comes in, you have to learn about their product. You have to go for specific training. Now, let me tell you where, in downstream innovation, the travel agency is really the master, and where, professionally, it can be seen to be even more competent than an airline staff. A travel agent needs to understand how all the airlines that operate into his base operate. So, he has to be a master of Kellen, he has to be a master of Air France, he has to be a master of Virgin, he has to be a master of Delta, and he has to be a master of United. He has to understand all the rules and policies of every one of those airlines. Everyone! Because he is servicing his clients, and his clients can go on any of the airlines.

Say you are an operations professional and you are working in just one airline. Your responsibility is to understand the policies and rules of the airline. But my responsibility is to understand the policies and rules of over 30 international airlines that fly into Nigeria, and we’re not even talking about the domestic ones. So, it’s not only that you need to be competent.

You also need to have the skills and to continuously develop yourself. Everybody who works in this office, for example, is a graduate. I can tell you that, easily, out of the 3,500 members, if you take a dipstick, I can tell you that easily 60-70% of them will be university graduates. That is one of our young members.

So, that (travel agency business does not require expertise) is a fallacy. And that is part of the things we are trying to stamp out. We are in the process of setting up our training institute.

And we will partner with relevant government establishments and international establishments to make sure that we continue to drive that professional capacity development in our sector.

There’s a growing belief that Nigerians are avoiding US routes due to the stringent policies introduced by the American government. Do you share this view?

I knew you were going to come there. Anytime any pressmen want to see you, they must talk about visas or must talk about America. You see, I always try to make one thing clear. You see, visa issues and visa policies are government issues. So, it is a policy of the government. And it is a diplomatic thing. That’s why, a lot of times, in the diplomatic circle, you talk about reciprocity. So, the first thing we need to understand is that it is a government thing. And there is little or nothing you can do to press that government about their immigration policies. If they become more restricted, if access to their visa becomes more restricted, it will definitely shift the pattern of travel.

Because I can easily tell you, though we don’t have the data and statistics, and I don’t like to speak to data and statistics that I don’t have. But I’m very certain that the number of visits to the U.S., because of that visa restriction and policy access, would have been affected, and the numbers would have been reduced. Personally, it stopped me, it affected me, and it stopped me from renewal. Because I’m thinking that, because of my schedule, you can imagine how long we’ve been trying to schedule this interview, because I’ve not been in control of my schedule for maybe like two months. So, if I get a renewal of three months, what will it get me? So, I might get a renewal of three months, and before I’m ready to go, the thing expires. So, it’s a policy. Every government is informed about why they go into, you know, their policy regimes. So, definitely, it will have affected travel. If the trend continues, traffic to somewhere else will continue.

And lastly, I want to talk about visa. In NATA, we are very strong on Africa for Africa. And Africa is beginning to open up for Africa now. For example, the last time I went to Kenya, it was like coming back home. I just gave him my passport, and there were no questions. There were absolutely no questions. Within 10 seconds, I was out. They just took my passport and gave it back to me.

So, what I’m trying to say is that eventually the pattern of travel and traffic will go along the path of countries where people are welcome. That’s how it will go.

So, if this guy says that you are not welcome, go to where you are welcome. If you don’t welcome me into your house, and somebody else welcomes me into his house, I will gladly go to where I’m welcome. Because before I sit down, they will give me water to wash my hands and make food for me. That is how the vision will eventually go. And when we continue to open those paths, investments follow opportunities. When we see that there are more opportunities in Africa for African visitors, those routes too will open up.

You know, we are seeing some airlines coming into Nigeria, Tanzania Air, and all of that. Yes, albeit slowly. But the day or the time that Africa realises and completely starts to consume Africa, that Africa is consuming Africa, the opportunities for connectivity will open up, and investments will flow into them. So, let’s visit places where we are welcome. My own position now is that I will do more of African countries, because they are exciting and interesting places. And everywhere you go in Africa, Nigerians are welcome. Forget all these social media things. The social media things are not a reflection of their perception of us.

Because there is no African country that I have been to that they are not welcoming, either socially or professionally. They also want to hear us talk. And they are waiting on us.

Cross-border trading has increasingly dominated conversations in the industry, often described as a challenge to your profession. What steps has NANTA taken to address this, what results have you recorded, and how far along are you in this fight?

So, cross-border trading is a sin, and we keep saying it all the time for people who are willing to listen. It is a sin. It is a sin against a market that welcomes you. The way it operates is an agency sits in Nigeria. You are the customer of that agency that sits in Nigeria, and you want to go, say, to the UK, to London. Another agency, so this is a Nigerian agency, and it is a Nigerian customer. Another agency sits somewhere else in the world, maybe in Asia or in Congo. That agency has a better fare for your Lagos–London–Lagos tickets than the agency that sits in Nigeria. So, it is a deliberate suppression of the market. There are not two names to call it. It is a suppression of the market, and it is unnecessary. Okay, we can say, ‘Oh, is that not the problem of the airline and all of that?’ You know, the airlines have their pricing structures, but there are unethical practices. There are some unethical travel agency practices in there. So, you know, you have some global agencies. They are welcome everywhere. But what we are saying is that you shouldn’t use your global reach to suppress our market and undercut the market.

There is no point. You know, the world is becoming a global village. The world is a global village now. So, you are all welcome to practise. But practise and be ethical within your practice in our market. Why would you go and, because you are a global trader, why would you go and bring the fare that is available to you, right, in another station? You understand, we say they are a global practice. You bring the fare that is available to you in another market and come and take it to undercut our market. For what purpose does it serve? You want to get the share of our market? If you want to get the share of the market, then compete effectively. Compete ethically. Because what is happening is that those tickets that are sold unethically are not being recorded for this market. That is why Nigeria dropped to the third position on BSP. Nigeria used to be number one on BSP, a consistent number one. In the last one and a half years, Nigeria has been number three, a distant third behind Egypt. It is now South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria. These are not things that will help the market to develop since the statistics do not count for us.

And secondly, it devalues everything we have in Nigeria. Let us start with the customer who gets the cheaper ticket. You know why they can sell an undercut is because it is cheaper for them, right? Services for tickets like that are restricted, and eventually the customer pays more if the customer runs into any trouble with change, because services in terms of change become difficult.

Because that ticket was sold from another clime, maybe he is asleep when the customer needs to do something in the course of the travel… So, we have had many cases. We have had many cases where customers have run into trouble if they have had to change or if they are not sure. Because service to certain tickets is restricted. There are police cases that come up because most of the time, those kinds of tickets are heavily restricted. So, that is a disservice to the consumer.

Then let us now talk about the travel agents. We have 3,500 members of NANTA. Some of our members are closing their shops. So, there is an unemployment issue. There is a serious unemployment issue there.

Then let us go to the GDS companies; we all know that, particularly in the multinational organisations, it is all about your numbers. The GDS companies that are operating locally in Nigeria are losing numbers. And these GDS companies employ Nigerians. When they are losing numbers, what eventually happens? They start to lay off. And this problem we are talking about would eventually hit the airline staff who are working locally for the airline. Because if your load factor is high, you know 40 per cent of the sales are not from your market.

Why would I need somebody at your level? And at best, you start to operate with just movie officers. The load factor is high, but 40 per cent of that load factor is not from the market, you know. To show you that it’s an absolute sin and to show you that some airlines that are responsive are listening to us, some airlines have adjusted their pricing structure and pricing policies to give priority to the point of commencement. It’s called POC. That is the point where that travel commences. And since your travel commences from Lagos. So, when pricing, the pricing is defaulted to give priority to the point of commencement. So, the points of commencement will have the better price. Or at least there is no other market that will have a better price than the points of commencement. Some airlines have done that. Because that is a fair thing to do. Otherwise, that practice will completely erode our market. And this problem is a general problem in Africa now, because we have gone to a few conferences in Africa. And when we talk about it, they always recognise that they are also facing the same situation, particularly Zimbabwe that is so upset by it. And they say that it is killing their market. And that they know that most of the tickets that are issued in their country are issued by another country that is much smaller than them. And that person from that smaller country is bigger on BSP. It’s a big, big problem in many countries. So, what we have now been doing is that we have been exchanging ideas. Sometimes, you know, we have meetings with associations of some countries. We have meetings.

In an African country, in a French West African country, there are five major unethical players. Major unethical travel agency global players that are under investigation for tax evasion and fraud. And we understand that their licences have been suspended, at least as far back as I know. It’s a suppression of the market that is unnecessary. Why would we allow our market to be suppressed? That is why we keep talking about it. Now, what achievements have we made so far? Look, if you listen very well, you’ll find that this government is responsive. This government listens. I know I initially made some comments about the Minister of Aviation. One thing you can’t take away from him is that he listens. He responds, and he always shows up when he’s available.

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