Nigeria Content Online

Days ago, the president of the Air Transport
Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria revealed an open secret:
Nigeria has been unable to achieve Category One status, which is a
higher level of air travel capacity that certifies our ability to fly
directly from Nigeria to the United States of America, hence saving
travellers the stress of flying from Nigeria to another country in
order to get a flight to America.

According to the union leader, this is as a result of “the high level of deficiencies” in the country’s aviation sector.

The Nigerian airline industry is severely
strained. Operators and regulators continue to dance around this
reality, but it is the fact. The woes of Virgin
Nigeria-turned-Nigerian-Eagle-turned-Air-Nigeria still got wide
attention, but they were only a tip of the iceberg. All our domestic
airlines are labouring -from Aero Contractors, to Bellview to
Chanchangi, they continue to complain about debts that choke operations.

For at least half a decade and three aviation
ministers in between the industry has been awaiting a N10billion
government bailout package.

On top of their indebtedness, and concerns about
safety airlines with IATA certification operate under the constant fear
of de-certification, and the uncertain business environment full of
other players champing at the bit to take over the industry.

“They are positioning Arik as a national carrier
but the truth of the matter is that Arik is not a national carrier,”
Benjamin Okewu, the union leader, said to the press for instance. “It
is a flag carrier and there is no way you can attain Category one
without having a national carrier and we have made it known to the
government. This is actually painful no matter how they look at it.”
Arik Air indeed has severally been referred to as the nation’s most
successful domestic airline, but further inspection reveals a different
story. A joint action of the NCAA and the Nigerian Airspace Management
Agency (NAMA), in June 2010, temporarily halted the operations of Arik
Air and IRS airlines over issues of non-remittance of charges.

The grounding of the two airlines by a task force
came as a result of monies owed over a long period. According to this
newspaper’s source, Arik Air was said to be indebted by almost N1.8
billion on the domestic routes, and about $126,000 on the international
route. Airlines are supposed to statutorily deduct five percent of
ticket fees for remittance to agencies.

Apart from Arik, 17 other carriers were said to be
owing up to N5 billion, being accumulated ticket sales charges
collected from passengers but not remitted to the agencies Aero was
said to owe almost a billion naira and Bellview, almost N300 million.

The bottom-line is that we are fiddling while Rome
burns. Our government and corporate players are playing games with the
aviation sector. Instead of taking the time to do things right we keep
looking for shortcuts.

The problems are plenty. There are the
longstanding allegations of corruption in the Federal Airports
Authority of Nigeria, unlawful interference by the current minister of
aviation on behalf of erring airlines, proper and thorough
certification by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority amongst others.
The lack of professionalism in our system showed itself in the fact
that the NCAA obviously failed to carry out a thorough certification of
airlines in the country before it invited officials from the
International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the United State
Federal Aviation Authority (US FAA) to Nigeria last week to examine the
issue of Category One Status.

Then there are smaller issues. Why has the airport
authority refused to install airfield lighting at the 18L (18left)
runway of MMA for over three years? Why is its payroll bloated with
consultants? Why are airlines still unable to break even, barely
struggling to survive despite persistent increase in charges?

Some solutions have been proffered.

The ‘Presidential sub-committee on solutions to
challenges facing the airline industry in Nigeria’ examined 10 critical
areas of the sector – high operating cost, aviation fuel,
infrastructure at the airports and air space, multiple tariffs and
charges, training and Central Bank of Nigeria Forex policy – and warned
of consequences should the government ignore its report.

The report included advice that the government
should provide “scheduled domestic airlines special airline financing
assistance in form of long term soft loans from under the Nigeria
Airline Industry Review Action-Fund recommended to be established by
the Federal Government with Nigerian banks.” The imperative of this is
clear. A viable airline industry will boost economic activities in
Nigeria but when the ‘Giant of Africa’ is unable to provide effective
and safe airline services, and continues to have severe structural
challenge within its financial service industry this is not likely to
happen.

Let’s stop deceiving ourselves. The nation cannot afford another series of air crashes. 2005 was only five years ago.