For the government to effectively implement its plans for the industry in 2024, it needs to look at the several shortcomings of the past years.
This was the position of the General Secretary, Aviation Safety Round Table Initiative (ASRTI), Mr Olumide Ohunayo while speaking on the sector’s outlook for 2024.
According to Ohunayo, in the new year, the government needs to review the activities of the private jet operators most of whom he alleged have fraudulently converted their aircraft to charter services through the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA)
Ohunayo lamented how the illegality of the operators have become so rampant in the sector in the recent past, while the NCAA seemed to have been overwhelmed.
He cited an example of a preliminary report released by the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB) last December, which indicted Flints Aero Services Ltd of flouting the Air Operator Certificate (AOC) issued to it by the NCAA by engaging in illegal charter operations.
Apart from this, several of the private jet operators engage in hire and reward services.
In the new year, Ohunayo tasked the government on the need to improve on the runway lightings across the airports for the purpose of increasing the operating hours for airline operators, while further forcing down the skyrocketing airfares among the indigenous operators.
He used the opportunity to canvass for the categorisation of AOC to intending operators even as he argued that this would help to gradually open up some of the unviable airports in the country.
While hoping that more Nigerian airlines would extend their wings outside the shores of West Africa to Europe and America in the new year, Ohunayo stated that this would ensure reciprocity in the Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) arrangements, while also bringing down the airfares in the international routes.
His words: “We cannot force the airlines to bring down the airfares, we can only make fares come down naturally when we allow competition and flexibility. If they (airlines) have more operating hours and more flexibility, I think, the airfares would drop. When we have more aircraft to increase the capacity, the airfares would drop naturally.
“We should also look at opening a new regulation for airlines that have a maximum of 100 seats, they can help to open up all the unviable airports instead of joining the ones that are going to the major airports like Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt. It is those small airlines with small aircraft that can help open up the country to more operations. I look forward to that.
“Also, we should take our time to develop other sectors of the aviation eco-system like the airport facilities and policies that will attract more investors into the sector and, increase the number of operating airlines.”
For an aviation analyst, Group Captain John Ojikutu (retd), he only wished for a more harmonious relationship among Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL), operators of the Murtala Muhammed Airport Two (MMA2), Lagos and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN in the new year.
While lamenting how the lingering feud between the two organisations had impacted negatively on the sector, Ojikutu urged the government to review the concession,
Commercialization and Privatisation Act 2000 to address the crisis between the two organisations, stressing that it was the same Act that gave birth to MMA2.
According to Ojikutu: “The Act has been abandoned and every political official in the successive administrations of our government wants the apple pie of the airports management and their earnings. The present administration should end the uproar between FAAN and Bi-Courtney and proceed with the suspension of the concessions, commercialisation and privatisation of the federal airports, which is taking too much from the Federal Government expected revenue earnings.”
He however called on the government to concession all the non-aeronautical services, which include the passengers and cargo terminal buildings, lands for offices and hangars, car parks and tollgates among others in 2024.
He equally urged the present administration to address its obligations to ICAO, which he said was basically the industry regulations oversight and enforcement of aeronautical services through the NCAA.
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