Nigerian aviation industry is in dire straits. A critical sector strategic to the nation’s economy has never been in such a protracted strain. Like a ship on a voyage already struggling to avoid sinking, the industry got pummeled by a virulent storm of Covid-19 in 2020.
While other countries gave out bailout funds in billions of dollars to their indigenous airlines to cushion the adverse effects of the pandemic and to stage a comeback, Nigeria government managed to give a paltry four billion naira to the entire aviation sector.
The unit cost of one aircraft engine is more than four billion naira. So, the meagre sum was a drop of water in a desert yearning for rain. The aftermath of the pandemic has left Nigerian aviation industry hemorrhaging and gasping for breath till date.
As I write, the situation has exacerbated. Local airlines have been struggling to remain afloat. Faced with skyrocketing price of aviation fuel, scarce forex, poor infrastructure at the airports, etc., the operating environment has been hellish and suffocating for local airlines. Fleet capacity has been reduced to 38%. Two local airlines have shut down operations with its attendant job losses.
Nigerian flying public has been experiencing incessant flight delays, cancelations and astronomical increment in air fares. As a result of these ugly developments, a lot of Nigerians can no longer afford to fly neither will they risk travelling on the road for fear of being kidnapped. A time like this calls for pragmatic actions from the federal government to provide leadership out of the doldrums.
Unfortunately and sadly, the federal government via the Ministry of Aviation is on a wild goose chase of floating another airline—Nigeria Air, when local airlines are closing shops as a result of difficult operating environment. Thousands of jobs are being lost and many Nigerians are finding it hard to afford air ticket. Local airlines cannot access foreign exchange for critical spare parts, let alone acquiring new aircraft.
The entire aviation sector is enveloped in the misery of uncertainty and unpredictability. As a passenger booking your flight schedule, you are gripped by the fear that your flight could be delayed for hours, or even canceled due to difficult operating environment, yet the regulator that should be saddled with enhancing doing of business is preoccupied with a misplaced priority, trying to float another airline.
With most aviation transactions domiciled in dollars while income is in naira, local airlines are finding it difficult to service their aircraft in the midst of acute scarcity of forex. For example, to do a C-check on Boeing 737 cost close to two million dollars. With exchange rate of N700/$, it is a herculean task to raise such humongous amount with its attendant negative effects on the airlines bedeviled by rising cost of aviation fuel and poor infrastructure at the airports.
So, the big question is, why a national carrier now? Is it not ill—timed and wrongly advised? Ministry of Aviation said that federal government would only have five percent equity interest. Who are the remaining 95 percent shareholders? Information from the grapevine insinuates that 49 percent is reserved for a foreign interest, possibly an airline, while 46 percent is reserved for Nigerian investors.
What is the name of this foreign airline? What are the names of Nigerians taking up the 46 per cent shares? Why the secrecy regarding the shareholders of a proposed “national carrier”? Isn’t the government supposed to be occupied in helping a strategic sector like aviation survive the hard times instead of creating another conduit pipe to waste limited public resources?
Jeffrey Utapia, Abuja
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