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The failure of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, (NCAA) to properly regulate the operations of domestic airlines by way of sanctions, directions and warnings have led to constant flight cancellations and delays, experts tell BusinessDay.
Experts also link flight delays to insufficient aircraft on the fleet of domestic airlines, making it difficult for them to operate their agreed flight schedules, one that the NCAA has failed to address in the past few months.
“As a regulator, the NCAA is supposed to ensure that the airlines stick to their recommended schedules and once those schedules are not kept for a certain period of time, the authority is supposed to sanction the airline. If they observe that their aircraft are insufficient to operate such schedules, the NCAA should then direct them to reduce their schedules to meet passenger demands,” Tayo Ojuri, Chief Executive Officer, Aglow Aviation, told BusinessDay.
Ojuri noted that there are a number of factors responsible for flight delays, which include technical and weather challenges as well as fuel scarcity, amongst others, and in the midst of all these, the NCAA is supposed to carry out its consumer protection role.
“If there are delays for more than 30 or 40 minutes, customers are supposed to be given snacks. When the delays are prolonged to over three hours or eventually cancelled, customers are supposed to be given accommodation, depending on their destinations.
“If the NCAA sees to it that the airlines abide by the rules regularly, when there are flight delays or cancellations, then the airlines would be forced to keep to time, except in situations beyond their control,” Ojuri added.
According to a report by the NCAA, in 2015, domestic airlines operated 62,488 flights but recorded 15, 276 cancellations, representing a 22.45 percent of the total flights operated and 30,911 delays, representing a 49.47percent of flights operated.
BusinessDay checks show that the nine domestic airlines operating in Nigeria lost over N27 billion in revenue to flight cancellations in 2015.
The conservative figure was arrived at based on losses incurred due to 15,276 flight cancellations in 2015.
The average cost of a ticket sold in 2015 was between N18,000 and N20,000. Average passenger capacity for an aircraft is between 150 and 200 seats.
The N27billion was lost on a sum of N18, 000 for 15,276 flight cancellations recorded in 2015.
In 2016, domestic airlines operating in Nigeria recorded 16,353 cases of delayed flights out of 30,100 flights operated by eight domestic airlines, representing 54.33percent of the total flight operated between January and June, statistics from the Consumer Protection Department of the NCAA show.
During the period under review, 601 flights were cancelled for various reasons by the airlines, representing two percent of the total flight operated.
“Let each airline have an operational base. All of them should not be operating every morning from Lagos to Abuja; while some can be from Lagos, others from Port Harcourt, Owerri, Enugu, Kaduna, Kano, Benin, Warri, etc.
“All airlines operating from Lagos at the same time results in them competing for the same number of passengers. So, when the passengers are not there as expected, they resort to cancellations or delays,” John Ojikutu, security expert and the former Commandant of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) said.
Ojikutu disclosed that most of these airlines registered their airlines operational base with specific address different from Lagos, but they do not comply as they did in the nineties.
However, Tayo Ojuri argued that the NCAA cannot mandate airlines to go to a particular route but that what they can do is to advise the Federal Airports Authority to encourage the airlines by giving them discounts, also called route development, to ply routes that are not very regular.
“For example if Lagos and Abuja collect N5,000 per landing, airlines can pay N2,000 for landing in Kaduna, the same applies to other mandatory fees paid. This can be an incentive to encourage carriers to go to that route.
But flight delays are also being blamed on the depleted number of aircraft in operation in the country.
Sources close to the NCAA say that 25 percent of existing aircraft owned by commercial airlines are on maintenance or AOG (aircraft on ground) either because they are no longer airworthy or are due for maintenance.
Gbenga Olowo, President of Aviation Round Table (ART), explained that recently, there has been continuous depletion of the fleet of Nigerian airlines.
Olowo recalled that in 2010, Nigerian airlines had 54 commercial operating aircraft but by 2014 the fleet had reduced to 39, noting that with declining fleet size, route expansion would be limited and robust schedule very difficult and down time for maintenance would impact negatively on schedule.
He attributed the failure of airlines to replace or add more aircraft to their fleet, to the harsh operating environment and high charges paid by the airlines to aviation agencies.
BusinessDay’s checks show that Dana currently has three operational aircraft, while two are abroad for maintenance. First Nation has recently grounded its operations because all its aircraft are abroad for maintenance; Medview has four operational aircraft and one abroad for maintenance.
Arik Air, the biggest domestic airline in Nigeria has 28 aircraft in its fleet presently, but has less than nine operational aircraft.
Nigeria currently has eight domestic airlines. They include Arik Air, Medview, Aero Contractors, First Nation, Dana air, Azman, Overland and Air peace. Common routes by most airlines are Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Uyo, Calabar and Owerri.
IFEOMA OKEKE
