Chairman of West Link Airline, Captain Ibrahim Mshelia has said that it would be extremely difficult for Nigeria Air to create 70, 000 jobs, as promised by the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika.
The Minister has last week Wednesday after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting that in addition to other benefits, the new planned national carrier would create about 70, 000 jobs.
But Mshelia said that it is doubtful that a new airline could create that number of jobs, using indices from major carriers over 50 years old pre-Covid-19 and noted that even the planned resumption of the airline in April 2022 may be far from reality especially with the processes on ground.
He said, “Number one: even before the COVID-19 hit British Airways, which is 47 years old, it had 42, 000 staff all over the world, Lufthansa is 68 years and has 100,000 staff. These are large airlines I am talking about. KLM with 100/102 years of existence, they have just about 100,000 employees and then if you come down to our level of Kenyan Airways which has just less than 5,000 workers, Etihad, state airline for the middle east, nation Qatar, has less than 13, 000-14,000. How on earth can airline that is a dream away, or a mirage, employ 70,000 people?”
On the projected April 2022 date, Mshelia explained that the process of starting the new airline would militate against its emergence and questioned how the Minister aimed to midwife a carrier into existence without registration and due process.
He said apart from the much spoken about 5 per cent equity belonging to Nigeria, no one knows the shareholders which means it is shrouded in absolute secrecy.
“There has to be transparency in the whole exercise. He (the Minister) must be called to order. It would take you a minimum of 12 months to register an airline when you know the name even with government leverage because there are incubation periods for some of these certification processes.
You need to register and when the CAC (Corporate Affairs Commission) gives you registration certificate, you need to apply for Air Transport License (ATL) if they will be doing scheduled operations.
“We all know that every director has to fill a form because the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) recommended practice is all those who operate an airline must have reputable track records. So we don’t have criminals doing gunrunning, laundering and what have you, every director on paper must be vetted by the SSS (State Security Service) and security agencies. You fill a Personal History Statement (PHS) form and submit it and it would be sent to SSS who will go to everywhere you put on that CV to verify.
“After the vetting you will make an advert for 28 days to last so anyone who has an issue with the licensing of the ATL to that applicant should come up with reasons, there could be court cases going on for months or years, that should further tell you something
“That has not been done before you get ATL so you can apply for AOC (air Operator Certificate), no one needs to tell you journalists how long it takes to get AOC in Nigeria, they are not going to jump the process because it is a Nigerian project, we will not allow that; plus we are a category one CAA, they should not dare do that; otherwise they will lose that status,” Mshelia warned.
