Abdurasak Saidu is secretary general, Nigerian Aviation Professional Association, in this interview with Sade Williams, he speaks on sundry issues in the aviation sector. Exerpts:
National carrier
There is the need for a national carrier to checkmate the encroachment of foreign airlines into our domestic passenger market. This is part of our agenda. The carrier must be floated in conjunction with a reputable company that has the technical know-how and the Federal Government to have minority shares. There should be majority shareholding through the Nigerian Stock Exchange .
The national carrier we envisaged must not be owned by one family and or one man as it is today with most Nigerian registered airlines’. If we say we want flag-carrier instead, which of the present airlines is strong enough or has track record of performance ? We tried it with Air Nigeria, it failed.
We need a strong national carrier to checkmate the encroachment of foreign airlines into domestic market which had hitherto robbed local airlines of passengers. Foreign airlines should only be allowed one entry and exit point in the country, that is Lagos only and allow Nigerian local airlines to feed the foreign airlines in Lagos with passengers from hinterland.
In effect, what we are saying is that government should cancel the multiple entry granted foreign airlines by Ministry of Aviation as it is not in the best interest of Nigeria, first, as regards security of our airspace and secondly on the economic side, it robs Nigerian registered airline of passengers on the domestic market.
NCAA autonomy
If the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) recognises the putting in place an autonomous regulatory authority by all contracting member States of ICAO, of which Nigeria is one, which brought about the establishment of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority[NCAA], and has worked to earn Nigeria the US FAA Category 1 Safety Status, having a supervisory Ministry of Aviation negates the spirit of an autonomous regulatory authority as propagated by ICAO.
That autonomy resides in NCAA. Why then do have Ministry of Aviation, which is a duplication? It is an anti-thesis. All oversight functions and regulatory functions are the responsibilities of NCAA.
Indebtedness of airlines
The Ministry of Aviation has all along encouraged accumulation of huge debts by airlines to service providers. Officials in the Ministry always arm-twist the agencies by not allowing them take necessary steps aimed at recovering their debts. There must be a way that the debts must be defrayed. There was a time that ‘pay as you go was introduced by NAMA.
Government should stop the idea of bailouts for private airlines. I don’t see the rationale behind using public fund/ government money to run private business. I have not seen a country where private business is run at the expense of government, more so when such an outfit is owing government agencies huge debt, refused to pay rents on the expanse of land it is occupying and does not pay taxes, disallowed Aviation Security men of FAAN on its premises and all sorts of things unchecked.
Cost of airlines’ operation
I know that the present government is desirous of doing something about it, especially the high cost of Jet-A1. I heard President Buhari saying something like that and promised doing something on Aviation when he met with a select group of businessmen during his recent trip to the US.
However if you look backward, you will see that lots of airlines have folded up not as a result of cost of operations but due to mismanagement. Most of their owners have money but lack the skill to manage an airline.
Today, out of those in operation, Med-View is quite different because the top and middle level managers are made up of skilled manpower, having been well grinded in airline operations/management while they were working in the government liquidated Nigeria Airways.
Those that run Med-View are professionals. However, other airlines need encouragement, I agree, but…….you cannot just carry government money and give them like that. It was done before to Air Nigeria and the money went down the drain through diversion and the airline eventually folded.
You all know the person involved. Government should learn from this. Once they are given free money, they divert it to their other businesses other than aviation and start building expansive mansions and abroad, amass chieftaincy titles all around the town.
Passenger service charge
The 5% Passenger Service Charge (PSC) does not belong to airlines which now forms part of their indebtedness. It is service tax collected from passengers and it ought to be paid promptly to government through the appropriate government agency. It is criminal for airlines to keep the PSC so collected in their vault or treat it as part of their indebted.
