How we pruned 150 airlines to 8 in 17 years- NCAA

Posted on by Wole Shadare

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The rot in the aviation industry has found expression in the sharp decline of airlines over the year as the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) at the weekend said that at the creation of the agency in 2000, it had on its register 150 airlines.
It disclosed that over 17 years, the number has drastically reduced to about nine scheduled airlines, adding that stricter regulatory oversight and the need to ensure air safety has led to many who could not meet up with stringent regulations to close shop.
Ncaa
General Manager, Public Affairs of NCAA, Sam Adurogboye made the disclosure while briefing the media.
Adurogboye said in the past before the agency was sanitised and handed its autonomy, any rich business man could just stray into the sector with minimum requirements; this he noted led to frequent accidents that led to loss of lives in the past, culminating in the agency raising the bar for would-be investors.
He stated that the closing of shop by airline operators is not peculiar to Nigeria, stressing that in advanced countries of the world like the United States, United Kingdom and Europe; airlines come and go if they find the regulations too stringent.
Adurogboye stated that globally, airlines are complying with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) rule of which Nigeria is a signatory, adding that it would not act against the global aviation rules.
Although Adurogboye posited that the inability of airlines to meet stiffer regulations have led to the demise of many, but airline operators have accused government of not giving them the enabling environment for them to operate, occasioned by the scarcity of foreign exchange, lack of aircraft maintenance facilities, high taxes, lack of good corporate governance among others have hampered their services.
Among airlines that have closed shop in the last 17 years are Bellview, Chanchangi, IRS, HAK, Savannah, Virgin Nigeria, Discovery, Albarka, ADC, Afrijet, Triax, Axiom, Capital Airline, Chrome Air Service, Dasab, EAS, Easy Link, Freedom Air Services, Fresh Air.
Others are Harco Air Services, Gas Air Nigeria, Nicon Airways, Max Air, Okada Air, Sosoliso, Space World, and Wings Aviation among many others.
 
According to him, “For all of us that may not know, NCAA was established in 2000. We had about 150 airlines in our register but by the time we got to 2006, it came down to 28. The question is what happened to them? They went under. Can we say that the NCAA is not doing its work? Of course, they do their work. If you have 150 airlines and some of them have gone under, we can’t say that they did not do their work. If you go to our register, you will see them.”
 
“At a point, the number came down to 12 and it came to what we have today to between 8 and 9 and someone will say it is because we did not regulate. If we do not regulate, those airlines’ number won’t come to that and they would have been dropping from the sky.  It happened because we did what we needed to do and we are still doing what we need to do. That is why they fizzle out.”
 
He likened the consolidation that happened in the Banking sector to what is going on the sector, saying the sector would only accommodate those that are ready and willing to do safe and profitable business.
 
 Adurogboye harped on good corporate governance for them to remain in business saying,  first, they are not good mangers to start with, let alone the challenges of running a sophisticated business such as running an airline.
He berated domestic airlines over what it termed as a steady dose of misinformation about the 5 per cent Ticket Sales Charge (TSC) stating that it was never a tax on airlines as they would have Nigerians believe but a charge on passengers collected in trust by airlines to be remitted to government so as to ensure facilitation is not hindered at the airports.
The regulatory body has also frowned on what is called misconception that airlines are making everyone believe that  taxes are only synonymous with the Nigerian business environment stating that before most of these airlines started operations these ‘so- called taxes’ were made known to them.
After the annexation of Arik Air by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), domestic airlines under the aegis of the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) lambasted the sector for the high taxes, attributing the many failures of airlines business to multiple taxation and other unfriendly taxes not found anywhere else in the world but Nigeria.
Wole Shadare