Expert Tasks Regulators, Operators to Rethink, Reset Aviation Sector in Nigeria

An Aviation expert, Prof. Anthony Kila has mooted that it is pertinent for the regulators and operators in the Aviation industry to rethink and reset the sector due to the major concerns that revolve around the effects of dwindling space of operation for aviation operators, reduced and delayed flights for passengers, increase in cost for all.

Prof. Kila, who is the Centre Director at Centre for International Advanced and Professional Studies,(CIAPS) Lagos, made this assertion in his opening remarks at the 26th Annual Conference of the League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC) with the Theme: ‘Sunset Airports: Economic & Safety Implications,’ Held at Sheraton Hotels and Towers, Ikeja, Lagos.

Due to this underlining development, he said that some aviation staff had joined the general strike convened by the Labour Congress and two of the biggest and most recognised Nigerian airlines had stopped their flights.

According to him, first it was Aero Contractors and two days later as if affected by a contagious virus, it was the turn of Dana Air, stressing that the dreadful question is who next?

Aero Contractors, he said, was forced to fold the wings of its scheduled flights due to exorbitant and unsustainable expenditures they have to incur in order to operate their scheduled flights and lack of equipment needed for their processes.

Dana Air, he added, was forced to quit the field operation over poor liquidity by the apex regulator, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).

He explained that in both cases the results are stranded, angry and, in some cases, violent passengers that have to deal with disrupted plans of many meetings and conferences that were cancelled and the challenges of looking for replacement flights at prices way higher than what they initially budgeted and paid.

He also hinted that the frustrated airline staff are faced with uncertainty about their professional lives.

Kila argued on why Aviation analysts, operators and particularly regulators like to say and even repeat that what matters to them more than any other thing in the industry is safety at most aviation forums, where agencies prefix or a suffix their names, deliberations and description with the term “safety”.

“In the name of safety, airlines are grounded and operations suspended by the regulator and one cannot in conscience and based on general and commonsensical thinking fault the intention and reasoning of the regulators when they justify their disruptive decisions along the lines of “better grounded than risky”.

“The deep and hurting reality is that we have an aviation crisis and emergency in our hands in this country. It is a crisis because the high cost of flights and shutting down of airlines in a country as big as ours in the times we live in looks very bad and it is leading to serious disruptions”, he said.

He harped on the need to act swiftly and decisively to deal with this very bad situation they have at hand so that it does not turn into an unmanageable disaster by rethinking and resetting the way we conceive and manage our aviation manners.

He described as an anachronistic misconception a prevailing idea in the general public and amongst too many leaders of thought, opinion moulders and indeed policy makers that aviation is a sector that services the elites or the privileged.

He stressed that in the time we live in and with the size and structure of Nigeria, aviation has become and will remain a basic and essential infrastructure; hence the role of regulators in the sector will be radically modified.

Kila lamented that at the moment, aviation regulators seem to come alive and are felt by many only when they disrupt and are noticed to be there only after they have grounded or suspended airlines.

In his words: “The regulator of a basic and essential service should be and must be seen to be committed to the delivery of services not its suspension, regardless of how noble their intentions are. The NCAA should be known for what it is doing to help airlines fly and we should all be educated to know that they are doing so because of the general good not as a favour to a company, private or public it does not matter.

“For the sake of consumers and citizens, aviation regulators should be working like a clearing house on ensuring that stranded passengers of delayed and cancelled flights can fly with the next available flights just as debit and credit card holders issued by one bank can easily withdraw money from the Automated Teller Machine (ATM) of any available bank.”

The expert acknowledged that “safety” is a recurrent theme in aviation discussion, but noted that a closer will readily reveal that finance is a sine qua non element of existence and survival in the aviation sector.

He highlighted that in aviation it is not just any money, it has to be foreign currency; hence the government through the presiding ministry and its regulating agencies in collaboration with the ministry of finance needs to champion the case of aviation to make forex available, affordable and accessible to aviation operators.

He stated further “Clearly, it is not enough to have aviation funds from government banks or aviation desks in commercial banks anymore, in line with rethinking and resting our aviation manners, it is time we think of activating an aviation bank that will raise and mange funds and offer niche financial products for the aviation industry.”

Consequently, he said in the spirit of rethinking and resetting aviation, operators need to go beyond flying or selling and distributing tickets, adding that it is time to represent their challenges as rewarding opportunities to capable innovators, inventors and investors.

He advocated that the maintenance of equipment, refining of aviation fuel, training and development of human capital, deployment of distribution systems and other problems that are adversely affecting the sector can and should be thrown open to the market as opportunities for players outside the aviation sector.

“To do all these and much more, requires the ability to conceive, shape and propose rewarding and sustainable partnership between the public and private sectors. it requires a collaboration of thinkers and doers but above it requires a leadership that can clearly and boldly rethink and reset aviation”, Kali emphasized.

Earlier in his opening remarks, the Chairman, League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC), Olusegun Koiki, narrated that in recent months, the various players in the Nigeria’s aviation industry, especially airlines, airport operators, oil marketers, ground handlers, catering services and all safety stakeholders have had to contend with a mirage of challenges, which have all combined to build a huge obstruction of the desired and projected revenue bottom-line for all stakeholders.

Koiki noted that in the execution of airport activities and plans, they should incorporate considerations for air travellers’ interests and the interest of other airport users, while both the government and private business concerns should in policy formulation also be concerned about the economic interest of airlines, handlers and other service providers.

The Chairman LAAC pointed out that a situation whereby a litre of Jet A1 goes as high as N800 is ridiculous and where a dollar is now over N600 in the alternate market because that is the only avenue where business organisations now run to, to get the currency for operations is indefensible.

“ Though our government attributes these challenges to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, but, the League reiterates that our investors are vulnerable in their operations and cannot compete with the current situation”, Koiki said.