Murtala Muhammed Airport Terminal
By Isi Thomas
Fifty-five years may be quite awhile in the life of a country hungry for growth and development therefore, her aviation industry which should be a key growth driver cannot afford to lag behind. Many would argue that the Nigerian aviation industry is yet in the woods, in spite of the achievements of recent years.
In this mixed bag of achievements and apparent existing challenges, one can perhaps, still be optimistic that the industry has successfully weathered some of the turbulence that has come its way over the past 55 years and it is now safely on a growth trajectory.
Since the return of Democracy about 15 years ago, the country’s aviation industry has boldly tackled some of the challenges holding it back in its bid to accelerate its development
.In 2003, the Olusegun Obasanjo administration set up a new national air carrier, known as Virgin Nigeria, to replace the erstwhile carrier, Nigerian Airways which had collapsed in a hail of debts few years earlier. The new national carrier was floated in partnership with British airline, Virgin Atlantic. Howbeit, the partnership, unravelled few years later despite the goodwill of government. Other spirited attempts to continue with a national carrier such as Air Nigeria , also failed.
Also under that administration, a N17billion Aviation Intervention Fund was put in place with the lofty goals of alleviating the industry’s funding gap, for infrastructure development and rehabilitation and to assist Nigerian private airline operators to fund aircraft acquisition and their operations. That effort also crash-landed, while two former aviation ministers were charged to court for corruption over the ill-fated fund.
Happily, in the area of Aviation safety, the country has covered a lot of ground and achieved some milestones. Since 2011, it has won two rigorous audits conducted by the US Federal Aviation Authority, FAA for its coveted Category one certification.
Also in recent years, the country began implementing a bold programme, known as TRADOC, to acquire and install a sophisticated radar tracking system that would guide air navigation in the country’s airspace and end the country’s bad image in aviation circles as a big navigation ‘ black hole.’ Significantly, fire-fighting tenders have increased from only four to 22 currently, boosting the fire-fighting capacity at various international and domestic airports where these existed previously and were put in place in several airports where there was none, previously.
For several years the country’s aviation infrastructure deficit remained a big problem. But in 2011, the Federal government launched what appeared to be an overly-ambitious infrastructural development programme to counter the problem. Under the multi-billion naira project known as the Airport Rehabilitation/Remodelling project ,a radical refurbishment and structural re-modelling of 22 federal airports in the country began for the first time in decades. This laudable project has been largely completed.
Emmanuel Ukpong, editor-in-chief of Arrival News, an influential aviation newspaper also reviews the country’s progress in the aviation sector. According to him, developments in the sector can be put in three areas. One the setting of a national carrier, the Nigerians Airways by the Federal Government in the late 1970s,which he says stimulated the first wave of private investors who believed they could compete against the national airline.
These private investors such as Okada Airlines, Bellview, ADC and Chachangi began setting up their airlines from the 1980s to the 1990s which competed very well against the national airline especially on domestic routes up to the early 2000s.Since then, several more private airline investors have come in. These include EAS, Fresh, Mid-Western, Sosoliso ,Dana ,Express, Aero Contractors, Arik Air and Associated Airlines.
Another area is in the development of airport infrastructure. By the late 1970s to early 1980saccording to Ukpong, the Federal government under the Military, had established four international airports at Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt and Enugu which opened up the sector. This, he says, encouraged some state governments that also began to construct airports in their various states, a development which ,he says ,further boosted the development of the aviation sector as it encouraged domestic air travel.
By 2006, following a spate of fatal air crashes, the Federal government revamped the country’s air safety regulations, strengthening the regulatory powers of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA and brought in experienced professionals such as Dr Harold Demuren, erstwhile Director General of NCAA, to run the agency.
That, according to Ukpong, soon changed the story of air safety in Nigeria. So much so that, it helped us to pass the US FAA safety audit twice.” These regulations are also being copied by South Africa now for its own aviation industry. Our aviation safety laws are envied by the rest of the world. We have exceeded even global standards in this area,” Ukpong says.
Also perhaps, for the first time a real Aviation masterplan was introduced. This was expected to give a solid thrust to government policy in this area and articulate the goals the country wants to achieve in its aviation sector. The masterplan was launched in 2012 and among others, advocated adoption of the ‘aerotropolis’ concept ,where the airport is the hub of economic and social development centres.
What are our aviation goals? To be the aviation hub of West Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. This has remained the same for over two decades. Another is : To provide world class aviation services, with profitable airlines – domestic and international.
Another notable achievement is the entry of several more international airlines ,most of which have set up operations in the country over the past 10 years.These airlines include Virgin Atlantic, Delta, World ,United, Emirates, Ethiopian, South African Airways, SAA, and Etihad. A Chinese airline plans to start operations in the country soon. They join the old airlines here such as British Airways, KLM and Luftsansa. The benefit of the influx of these foreign airlines is that Nigerians and foreigners alike have more options in terms of routes from which they can connect to other parts of the world through air travel and at competitive rates.
Five new international airports are under construction in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano and Enugu by the Chinese construction giant, CECC under a bilateral loan agreement with the Chinese government. Engineer Saleh Dunoma, managing director of the Federal Airports Authority, FAAN said at the recent Aviation Communities International, ACI’s Annual General Meeting held in Panama, that the completion of the new international airports next year, would make the country truly the aviation hub of West Africa, if not sub Saharan Africa.
These new state-of-the-art, world class airport terminals would firmly launch the country into the 21 century, in aviation terms. Existing airports which were built mostly 30 to 40 years ago, only recently benefitted from a major structural overhaul under the Airport Rehabilitation/Remodelling project launched in 2011.
Construction of new cargo terminals at these airports is also a positive step that will empower Nigerian farmers to participate in the global trade in perishable agricultural produce including fresh flowers worth over $250 million per annum, according to 2010 figures, to African countries. This would not only create wealth for Nigerian farmers, it will also provide a significant addition to the country’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP. Nigeria has been missing for too long on this list of exporters of perishable agric produce which includes Ghana ,Zimbabwe, Tanzania, South Africa, Namibia, Uganda and Ethiopia, among others. Can the ‘Giant of Africa’ rise to the occasion?
In 2007, the country’s first privately built airport terminal opened at Ikeja ,Lagos. Financed and built by Nigerian firm, Bi-Courtney Aviation Services owned by Nigerian lawyer/ businessman, Wale Babalakin. It is noteworthy that a foreign player, Royal Sanderton of Canada could not execute the multi-billion naira Build, Operate, Transfer, BOT deal, before Bi-Courtney stepped in. More big private-public partnerships are however, needed to push the industry forward through ameliorating the acute infrastructure deficit at several airports.
In the area of Manpower development, the country is yet lagging in the number of skilled and experienced aviation professionals ,including technocrats, policy and decision makers.
Re-organisation of aviation agencies in mid-2000 which resulted in splitting Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA and creation of separate agencies as Nigerian Aerospace Authority, NAMA and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency, NIMET, and the streamlining of directorates, along functional lines within these agencies which include the Federal Airports Authority, FAAN, gave a needed boost to business focus, policy-making and professionalism in the industry.
Few years ago, after many years of being moribund ,the Nigerian Aviation Training School, Zaria which is tasked with producing entry level professionals for the industry was rehabilitated and re-equipped and renamed Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, NCAT, to enhance its capacity to produce trained manpower—pilots and cabin crew—locally for the aviation sector. Otherwise, wholly foreign training would have been so expensive. A few private institutions, such as Landover Company, too, are engaged in various training programmes aimed at providing skilled manpower locally for the industry.
Even so, the local capacity for the training of aviation personnel—pilots, air traffic controllers, cabin crew, engineers remains grossly inadequate. For example, it is doubtful if any Nigerian university out of over 50 ,offer courses in aeronautical engineering or aircraft maintenance.
Indeed, maintenance hangar facilities are also grossly inadequate with more than 80 per cent of routine maintenance of aircraft operating in the country,still being done abroad.This results in loss of available foreign exchange to the country and loss of economic earnings. This is also not a good indicator for a country with the stated goal of being the aviation hub of West Africa.
The country’s aviation ministry has signed several bilateral Air Services Agreements ,BASA with several countries including the US, Jordan, Isreal, in the past few years which has opened up more flight routes and more business prospects for Nigerian airlines.
Many foreign airlines, too, have come in to do business here in the past decade taking advantage of the country’s strong demand for air travel and a fairly good business environment. Emirates, Delta ,Ethiopian, Virgin Atlantic, World, South African Airways have joined old timers—British Airways, KLM and Luftsansa.
Our strides in aviation equipment and safety infrastructure cannot be pushed aside.From a poor safety infrastructure level up to the early 1990s,the country has upped its game since the beginning of the previous decade,2000s..
So much so that ICAO, the global United Nations agency overseeing the safety of commercial aviation elected a Nigerian aviation technocrat, Dr Bernard Aliu as the current chairman of its governing board last year. This wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t have an impressive world class safety standards in the country’s aviation sector.
A new crop of well heeled Nigerian investors are also pushing forward the growth and development of the industry. These include airline operators, technical service providers, infrastructure builders/developers, and aviation trainers. A new investor such as Sir Johnson Arumemi-Akhide ,founder/chairman of Arik Air is blazing a new trail in investment in aircraft. His airline has being ordering several brand new aircraft worth hundreds of millions of US dollars for his airline, thereby breaking from the tradition of buying only used aircraft by Nigerian airline operators. Ordering new aircraft used to be the exclusive preserve of foreign airlines. Not anymore.
The challenges before the new administration of President Muhammadu Buhari in the aviation arena are many. Some observers advise that he carries through with ongoing infrastructural projects to see them to completion. They also suggest that he takes another look at the thorny issue of having a national air carrier. How to assist Nigerian airlines to get access to low interest credit is another important issue.
In all, the country’s aviation industry will get a pass mark. It has come a long way since the early days of the 1960s.
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