Franklin Ihejirika in this article examines the growth of domestic airline industry and posited that government needs to do more for these airlines to ensure their survival, especially against the foreign carries that are now operating from every international airport across the country.
In recent time, the Nigerian domestic airlines industry seems to be recovering from the decline suffered over the years as a result of harsh operating environment, incessant crashes, poor finances and other factors. With these positive developments, there are rays of hope for the domestic airline industry that have been struggling over the years for survival.
Today, more new airlines are now coming on board; this is against the decline the industry suffered in the past. Now ,there are new entrants into the industry like Azman Air, Discovery Air that have started flight operations, while Hak Air and Air Peace are set to also commence flight operations soon. With these new airlines and the old ones like Arik Air, Aero Contractors, Medview Airlines, Overland Airways, and First Nation airlines, the domestic airline operators are set to rebound after uncertainties that have characterized the growth of the industry in recent years.
AZMAN Air Services Limited started flight operation on Thursday 15th May 2014 on Kano to Lagos, Lagos to Abuja and Abuja to Kaduna with two Boeing 737 classic.
Speaking while receiving the Air Operators Certificate, AOC at the NCAA annex, Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, the President of AZMAN Air Services Limited Alhaji Abdulmunaf Yunusa stated that the airline’s in-flight services would be very good as passengers will be treated with care.
This was followed by Discovery Airline that commenced flight operations on Monday June 9th, after successfully obtaining their Air Operator Certificate, AOC from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA.
While receiving their AOC, the chairman of Discovery Air, Mr. Babatunde Babalola promised that the airline will adhere strictly to safety procedures.
Babalola explained that the airline will take the issue of safety as priority because it was not easy to come out of the certification process. He said the airline will start operations with two Boeing 737 aircraft and will keep increasing the fleet size, adding that the company will concentrate on delivering quality customer service.
Just recently, the chairman of Air Peace airline, Barrister Allen Onyema disclosed that the airline will commence flight operations with seven aircraft comprising of Boeings and Dornier airplanes.
Barrister Onyema who made this known while taking delivery of a B737—500 series with registration number 5N—BQS flown in from Texas, United States at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, MMA, Lagos, said the airline has already commenced demonstration flights.
He stated that the airline has entered into maintenance partnership with BCT Aviation Maintenance Company, United Kingdom.
Onyema said BCT Aviation Maintenance Company, is the major British maintenance company that maintains aircraft around the world.
He explained that though the maintenance agreement is at a huge cost, that it demonstrates the amount of seriousness Air Peace attaches to safety.
The Air Peace chairman noted that the airline has zero tolerance for unsafe practices hence the seriousness attached to safety with the signing of agreement with UK base maintenance company.
Commenting on why he opted for Dornier aircraft, Onyeama said that Air Peace chose Dornier aircraft because of it capabilities, adding that the aircraft can take off on a short runway and also land on short runway.
While the former governor of Abia State and owner of the defunct domestic airline, Slok Airline, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu disclosed of plans by Slok Airline to resume its domestic flight operations in the country anytime from now.
The airline which started domestic operations during the tenure of former president Olusegun Obasanjo was forced to shut down their operations in Nigeria due to political difference and later relocated to The Gambia where it became the national carrier of that country briefly before it finally shut down its operations.
Dr. Kalu said that discussions were on-going between Slok Airline and Emirates Airline for the airline to commence domestic operations in the country.
According to Kalu, both Emirates Airline and Slok Airline are discussing logistics at the moment and other areas so that the airline will recommence flight operations.
He noted that as soon as the discussions were completed, the airline will resume its domestic flight operations in Nigeria, pointing out that Slok Airline was going into partnership with Emirates Airline as one of the best airlines in the world.
He maintained that with the backing of Emirates Airline, Slok Airline will do better in the domestic scene in Nigeria.
Before now, the country has a booming domestic airline industry with so many airlines operating into different cities around the country.
The Nigerian domestic airlines have had a peculiar trend since the early 90s when over 20 domestic airlines fly the countries airspace. Some of those Airlines included Okada Air, Oriental Airline, Arbarka Air, Sosoliso Airline, Kabo Air, Chanchangi airline, Associated Airline, Capital Airline, Bellview Airline, Triax Airline, Space World Airline, Dasab Airline, Fresh Air, Chrome Air, Harco Air services, Harka Air, Allied Air, EAS and later NICON Airways, Aero Contractors, and of recent, First Nation Airline among others. Today most of these airlines have disappeared from our airspace leaving Arik Air, Aero Contractors, Overland Airline and Dana Air, Medview Airlines, Overland Airways, and First Nation airlines, keeping the flag flying.
While the fate of Chanchangi Airline, IRS Airlines and Associated Airline have remained uncertain based on poor finances to run these airlines professionally and crashes that have affected the fortunes of the airlines.
It is on record that the Nigeria’s government had in a bid to bring the sector to international standard approved N300 billion as intervention fund to help airlines upgrade their fleet.
But despite the aviation intervention fund provided by the federal government, nothing seems to have changed with the fortunes of the domestic airlines, but rather it has been on a gradual decline.
The former minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah while in office emphasised the plan of the federal government to increase the number of domestic airlines, saying that the government is not happy about the situation where the country has few operating airlines.
According to her, “we have in place a plan, a very strategic plan that is sustainable and that will be fundamentally very strong, if you look at our roadmap, it clearly states on the fifth number of it, it says growing domestic airlines and in growing domestic airlines, we don’t want to go into it without having a proper plan in place, the plan is to make sure we use different things, number one we use our BASA to partner our domestic airlines with international airline operators, so that we can increase their capacity. Number two is to have proper utilisation of the intervention fund, where the federal government will pay direct to the manufacturers and the manufacturers will in turn give aircraft to Nigerian operators and when that happens, you will have a win- win for all.”
In her words, “the public will have a very safe aircraft to use and a lot of them for that matter, so they can plan their itinerary properly and air travel will become and remain the preferred mode of transportation. The owners of the aircraft will have ring around their revenue, so they will ensure that we don’t have a situation where aircraft are been return at will because people are not paying back the owners of those aircraft.
So we will ring that around and the revenue goes straight to the owners and so tomorrow if you become an airline operator you won’t have any issue because you are from Nigeria, so all these are in place, we are waiting for final approval to make it all work. So you will see more healthy domestic airlines operating in Nigeria, we are really working very hard to make that come through and we are also working on the National carrier, we are hoping that once we get the final approval, we go through the process, it will be a very transparent process so that everyone can participate in that process.”
Some experts in the past have called on the government to quickly implement the Yamoussoukro Decision and integrate the West African region while some others have called for mergers, like collapsing the airlines into four big, strong airlines with guarantee from government to carry out reforms that are necessary to ensure their survival.
However, government needs to do more for these domestic airlines to ensure their survival especially against the foreign carries that seems to be operating from every international airport in the country with so many frequencies thus denying the domestic airlines of the opportunity of distributing international passengers brought in by these foreign airlines.
More so, the new airlines should learn from the old airlines that have gone into extinction to know why they failed and take corrections from their mistakes.