Airline operators back Nigeria Air’s suspension

• Want govt. to re-strategise on national carrier

Airline operators under the aegis of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) said it backed the position of the Federal Government to suspend the planned national carrier project in the interest of the nation and to rethink the entire project.

He stated that Nigeria does not need a national carrier, stressing that like what operates in advanced countries of the world, what Nigeria needs are strong private airlines that are allowed to operate in a friendly operational environment with a level playing field and policies that ensure their survival.

The domestic airlines have on several occasions criticised the project on the basis that it would stifle their operations because of the enormous patronage and goodwill the proposed airline would bring to the country while their investment looked threatened.

Chairman of AON, Capt. Nogie Meggison thanked President Muhammadu Buhari and the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for listening to, “our many calls for the idea to be suspended. In our opinion we believe the process was neither transparent nor did it clearly define the role of Private investors in the entire process.”

  He urged government to go back to the drawing board and engage with the private sector with transparency on how to position Nigeria as the hub for Africa to take advantage of the country’s God given gift of geographical location.

Meggison stated that at this time of limited resources and struggle to recover from recession, airlines would like to state that there are private Nigerian airline investors ready to invest and already investing heavily on the sector and only asking for a friendlier operational environment and infrastructure support.

Putting the issue into perspective, Meggison said, “Setting up of national carrier will cost Nigeria at least $3bn (a single B777 as of today costs about $320m.)”.

 He therefore asked: “Is it wise and our priority as a nation to take $3bn from the Nigerian coffers today and put into a venture that will for sure go down the drain within a maximum of 5 years to establish a “national carrier”?

Meggison noted that bearing in mind that the national carrier would need an additional cash injection of $500m subsidy per year on average for the next 10 years to keep the airline afloat while about 97 per cent of the 200 million Nigerian masses are grappling for the basic necessities of life; food, shelter, electricity, water, education and good roads.

This is corroborated by a recent CNN report stated that Nigeria has overtaken India as the country with the largest number of people living in extreme poverty, with an estimated 100 million Nigerians, or around half of the country’s population, thought to be living on less than $1.00 a day.

He further stated that national carrier is just for national pride, stressing that business and pride don’t go together.

According to him, all over Europe South America, USA,  90 per cent of them have been made private including Lufthansa, British Airways, noting that they are all flag carriers which are completely private entities.

He recalled that just ten years ago, precisely, September 12, 2018 was a clear indication of what obtains in the true world, when Boeing financed a private Nigerian airline, Air Peace for purchase of 10 Boeing 737-8MAX airplanes in a deal valued at $1.5billion.

He pointed that South African Airways has been in insolvency in the last 10 years and has been receiving from the government bailout yearly ($400 million) in order for it to stay in business.

Kenya Airways, he reiterated has equally been struggling, hinting that the airline is facing tough financial crisis that is threatening its very existence.

The airline recently got a $750 million bailout in the past year. It’s a known fact in the industry that Ethiopian airlines with over $35 billion exposure, is rushing to go public or may start to default in payments soon.

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Wole Shadare