The Commissioner, Accident Investigation Bureau Nigeria (AIB-N), Akin Olateru has listed staff welfare, training, promotion of staff and provision of quality equipment as some of his top priorities as he commenced his second term in office.
He told journalists in Lagos that he would ensure the bureau continue to deliver on its mandate by entrenching utmost professionalism in the investigation of serious incidents and accidents.
He also added that the management would make public its safety recommendations as fast as possible to prevent recurrence of similar serious incident or accident.
“There are a few items on the list. Priority number one is the issue staff welfare, training, issue of promotion and equipping our staff with the right tools and things that will make them happy.
“For instance, going to the accident site, we want to ensure that we provide the right operational vehicles and the whole things that will give them satisfaction.
“Number two priority is to ensure that we continue to deliver our mandate and it is clear that we investigate serious incident and accident and it has to be done to the highest professional level.
“The best that can be done is to release a report in good time and the quality of the report should be topnotch and the fact that should be clear and it must be communicated in a way the reader can understand. All this will make AIB an enviable place to work.”
On the amendment to the Act setting up AIB-N presently before the National Assembly, Olateru explained that consultations with major stakeholders had reached 96 per cent, stressing that intermodal accident investigation would further enhance safety in all modes of transportation.
Olateru further shed more light on the recent handing over of its investigation into the incident involving Air Peace at the Lagos Airport.
According to him, a review of the incident indicated that its investigators didn’t complete the assessment of the incident before taking a decision on it, stressing that investigation of such incident was within the purview of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).
He added: “The attention of the management was called to it to re-evaluate to listen to the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) before you take a decision when it is not clear as to what decision to have taken.
“This is because when you talk of serious incident and accident, you need serious clarification to be able to determine, which decision to take.
“It is in that determination, but my team did not have enough information and they determined it to be serious incident, but after listening to the CVR and FDR, they later found out that it was an incident, but not a serious incident.”
Besides, he lauded the federal government for sustaining the industry despite the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which crippled activities in most countries of the world, including the developed nations.
He said: “I can tell you that we have done well than most of the richest countries, even though we are not the richest, but we have done excellently well.
“The flight from Houston to London, they combine three days flight, they are still not up to 50 per cent. Yet coming to Nigeria, the flight is always full.
“Besides, aviation in Nigeria is slightly different from other part of the world. We beat all this world analysis because we have peculiarities different. Look at our domestic and international operations, while most flights around the world are going half, ours is full.
“If you want to fly to Abuja and you don’t book three or four days ahead, you are not going anywhere. Meanwhile the passenger load is still there. So, in terms of assessment, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, I think we are still doing very well; we just need to keep up with the standard and making flight enjoyable for passengers.”
IATA Revises Industry 2021 Outlook
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said it expects net airline industry losses of $47.7 billion in 2021 (net profit margin of -10.4%).
This is an improvement compared with the estimated net industry loss of $126.4 billion in 2020 (net profit margin of -33.9%).
“This crisis is longer and deeper than anyone could have expected. Losses will be reduced from 2020, but the pain of the crisis increases. “There is optimism in domestic markets where aviation’s hallmark resilience is demonstrated by rebounds in markets without internal travel restrictions.
“Government imposed travel restrictions, however, continue to dampen the strong underlying demand for international travel. Despite an estimated 2.4 billion people travelling by air in 2021, airlines will burn through a further $81 billion of cash,” said, IATA’s Director General, Willie Walsh.
It stated that the outlook points to the start of industry recovery in the latter part of 2021.
In the face of the ongoing crisis, IATA calls for plans for a restart in preparation for a recovery, noting that IATA continues to urge governments to have plans in place so that no time is lost in restarting the sector when the epidemiological situation allows for a re-opening of borders.
“Most governments have not yet provided clear indications of the benchmarks that they will use to safely give people back their travel freedom, in the meantime, a significant portion of the $3.5 trillion in GDP and 88 million jobs supported by aviation are at risk.
“Effectively restarting aviation will energize the travel and tourism sectors and the wider economy. With the virus becoming endemic, learning to safely live, work and travel with it is critical. That means governments must turn their focus to risk management to protect livelihoods as well as lives,” said Walsh.
IATA said industry losses of this scale imply a cash burn of $81 billion in 2021 on top of $149 billion in 2020.
