Aircraft Underutilisation, Revenue Loss to Sunset Airports Worry Airline Operators

Chinedu Eze

Airline operators in Nigeria are worried about forced flight cancellation, underutilisation of their aircraft, including loss of revenue to sunset airports, because of limited hours of flights.

Sunset airports in Nigeria are domestic airports that operate only between sunrise and sunset (typically from 6:30 AM to 6:00 PM) because they lack full night-landing and lighting facilities.

By contrast, Nigeria’s five major international airports—Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano, and Enugu, operate 24 hours a day. Almost all other state and domestic airports in the country function as sunset airports.

The airports include Akure Airport, Benin Airport, Ibadan Airport, Ilorin Airport, Kaduna Airport, Maiduguri Airport, Calabar Airport and Makurdi Airport.

Others are Minna Airport, Osubi Airport, Sokoto Airport, Yola Airport, Bauchi Airport, Gombe Airport, Dutse and Kebbi Airports.

The Managing Director/CEO of Aero Contractors, Captain Ado Sanusi, told THISDAY that airlines lose huge revenue to these airports, which constitute over 70 per cent of the airports in Nigeria because of the limited hours of flights.

The limited hours of flight also lead to underutilisation of aircraft because aircraft meant to operate 16 to 17 hours a day are forced to operate for only eight hours, which has technical consequences on the equipment.

The sunset airports also force airlines to cancel flights because after aircraft on rotation have suffered delays in their operations, a 4:00 pm flight to any of these airports may be pushed down to 6:00 pm and finally to cancellation.

In daily domestic flight service, airlines schedule flights from Lagos and Abuja to these airports and as daylight airports the schedule must be between 6:30 AM to 6:00 PM. The consequence is that the airlines usually have chocked flight schedule during daytime, which sometimes leads to flight delays and finally cancelations.

If flights can operate to these airports in the night, airlines can schedule flight time to 8:00 PM and 9:00 PM depending on security and proximity of these airports to the cities.

During the Christmas season when airlines schedule many flights to these airports, their operations are disrupted by the limited hours of flight.

According to Sanusi, “Airlines lose money to sunset airports because they schedule limited number of flights to these airports. South West Airlines in the US for example, utilise its Boeing B737 for 16 hours in 24 hours. But in Nigeria it is half of that and the more the aircraft flies the more it makes money. In Europe aircraft fly for more hours. So, Nigerian airlines lose revenue to these airports.”

“When aircraft continuously operates for only eight hours it is underutilized. In aircraft maintenance it falls into low utilization which attracts higher cost in maintenance,’ Sanusi further said.

At the Aviation Day of the 23rd Akwaaba African Travel Market held in Lagos, airlines pointed out that inadequate airport infrastructure contribute significantly to flight delays and cancellations.

The Chief Commercial Officer of United Nigeria Airlines, Adedayo Olawuyi, who was one of the panelists, said many factors contributing to delays, were beyond airline control.

“There are many reasons that lead to cancellations and delays of flights in Nigeria’s aviation sector. I would first like to speak about the infrastructure that we have. I don’t know how many of you have ever lived in a five-bedroom apartment where there is only one car park? You know, before you go out in the morning, they need to call you to come and move your car. Sometimes that’s what we face because of congestion at the airport.

“So, if you get to the ramp early in the morning, there are times when the aircraft is blocked from moving simply because there are many operators operating today. A flight that pushes back at 6:59 a.m. eventually takes off at 7:38 a.m. The flight was supposed to arrive in Abuja by 8 a.m., but there’s already a 40-minute delay that the airline knows nothing about. Now, we are not saying delays will continue or that we intentionally want to delay flights. Airlines don’t want to intentionally delay flights but the challenges we face are what brings about these delays,” Olawuyi said.

Nigerian airlines are sometimes in a quandary when scheduling flights to Nigeria’s many sunset airports. Most often passengers are moved from the major airports to these airports.