Aviation stakeholders’ forum: Lessons learned, position taken

The stakeholders’ forum held last week revealed the precarious situation of the aviation industry. The industry had made some slow progress. Stakeholders who highlighted many of the challenges hoped that the forum would speed up development for the entire aviation value chain, writes, WOLE SHADARE

Challenges

For more than 30 years, many noticeable challenges in the Nigerian aviation industry have remained unresolved. A highly respected aviator once referred to the country’s aviation as ‘sick’ and devoid of any known solution.

The stakeholders forum of Saturday, inasmuch as good for the sector, could also point to a direction that the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo may just be working towards an answer.

It may just be to fulfill all righteousness and to prove to anyone that he held a meeting to ascertain the level of rot in the sector before taking a tough decision that may come after the ‘Warri Declaration’ starting on Wednesday, November 8, 2023.

The ‘Warri Retreat’ for all the agencies’ CEOs and other stakeholders is a follow-up to the one held in Lagos on Saturday. Even a blind man knows that the Minister is up to something and he is set to unwrap it very soon.

The manner he moderated the session gave an indication that he did not want anyone to waste his time just as many participants were cut short of making their presentations and giving more insight into the issues at hand.

Let us hope that the Minister will not take actions that would become very controversial and set him up against many forces, particularly on the unbundling of FAAN.

FAAN has an Act setting it up and would be counterproductive to act out of emotion or be carried away quickly by people who want the agency unbundled without taking into consideration workers’ welfare and other technical details that may worsen the already bad situation.

Virtually everybody agrees that the sector has made some very slow remarkable impact since 99 years of aviation in the country.

The progress made had been rather slow while there were so many noticeable gaps in regulatory oversight, service delivery, and wanton disregard for rules.

Keyamo was inundated with many complaints immediately after he was appointed as Minister. His ears were filled with so many unpalatable stories of how the sector had not worked.

The Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), the umbrella body for many of the scheduled domestic and private airlines were about the first group to visit Keyamo to lament the precarious situation they found themselves in. Shortly after, other groups visited the Minister. Lamentation filled the air. As a brilliant lawyer, he listened to all sides of the stories. He knew there were problems.

He jocularly told a section of the media that visited to equally make their complaints to him about the state of the industry. Keyamo said to the media in Pidgeon English, “This una aviation na wahala plenty there. I did not know that I was enjoying in Labour Ministry. Na now I see work”.

The Minister equally alluded to so many interests by greedy individuals, airline operators, contractors, and those with genuine concerns amongst the groups and explained that he knew what to do to tackle some of the issues in the sector headlong.

Many have seen the slippery slopes various aviation ministers threaded on. They started with so much passion but fizzled out when they were expected to rise up to the occasion. So many people have seen many stakeholders fora’ that were long in talks but short in delivery.

Passion

One thing is certain, the Minister seems to be passionate about the industry and wants to leave a positive mark by tackling many of the problems he met. He is driven by passion and really wants to impress President Bola Tinubu who had promised to sack any of his ministers that are not performing. The Minister last week signed his Performance Key Index (KPI) bond and submitted it to his principal.

At the forum on Saturday, he promised to sack any of the agency CEO who fails to live up to expectation, saying, “It is either I get fired or you get sacked. Before I am sacked for non-performance, you (pointing to the (CEOs) you will be fired. It is now, who goes first”.

As expected, the Minister felt there was a need to hear from the stakeholders. What they revealed clearly shows that, yes, the industry has not totally done badly, but its growth had been retarded either deliberately or inaction of those that should know better.

Lame duck

One intriguing scenario that played out is that the aviation regulatory body, the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) autonomy had been eroded making the agency to be a lame duck, irresponsive, and lacking ‘total’ control of what it is set up to do. Yes, it is all agreed that the autonomy of the NCAA is only on paper and not allowed to be implemented.

The Director-General of the NCAA, Capt Musa Nuhu cut a pitiable sight when he was explaining his helplessness and one wonders the type of aviation the country is running. It was becoming very clear why the country did abysmally in the just concluded International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) audit. There seems to be no coordination between the various aviation agencies.

The agencies, with what played out at the forum where the various CEOs were pushing the blame on each other show how far the sector has almost gone apart as no meaningful thing can be achieved with a divided house.

The Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, (FAAN), Kabir Mohammed was mature with his response by not engaging Nuhu in what would have been a ‘Roforofo’ fight. It is common knowledge that many of the agencies’ CEOs do not see eye to eye as they nurse animosity against each other.

The treatment of the NCAA on the same pedestal as FAAN, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) is absolutely wrong from the point of regulation.  The Minister has corrected the abnormality and directed all the agencies to take instructions from the NCAA.

The country has a CAA that has been handed all the powers to sanitise the sector but is preoccupied with how his action won’t hurt his Minister or people in government whereas he had been given most of the tools he needs to help the sector.

It is inconceivable that a regulator would look the other way when airlines infringe on passengers’ rights and stand in airlines’ defence to deal with passengers. Not a few agreed that the Consumer Protection Directorate under the NCAA is lying prostrate and needs help.

If a Minister could call the regulator’s attention to passengers’ rights infringement and ask for weekly publication of flight delays, cancellations and with a view to helping travelers to minimise the pain they go through in the hands of the carriers, one would not call that interference because the regulator may have gone to sleep.

Airlines running out of delay excuses

The airlines too did not help matters by always claiming bad weather, sunset airport, infrastructure, and bird strikes for the reason they delay passengers. Many of the airlines are economical with the truth. Bad weather does not occur at every flight. They know the closure of many of the airports and should have factored that into their operations.

Agreed that situations like this happen in other climes and can cause flight delays. In Nigeria, apart from the early morning flights, all subsequent flights are delayed. Air Peace, Overland, and United Nigeria rank amongst the airlines that have the worst flight schedules in Nigeria according to the NCAA report of early this year.

Aviation media consultant and CEO of Belujane Consult, Mr. Chris Azu Aligbe put the delays caused by the airlines at about 70% while the delays caused by extraneous forces beyond the control are about 30%.

“It is when we start publishing the thing that we will see the difference. I believe that is the entire direction. It is good that the minister is asking them to publish it and it is what they used to rate airlines.

Taking a cue from the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority that fined airlines $15.5 million for flight delays, cancellations, and ill-treatment of passengers, Aligbe said, “They can. CAA can take a cue from that. I know that the area they have been sanctioning airlines is the area of safety and they have been doing that but in this area of consumer protection, they have not. They will need to step up. Since it has become an issue, I am sure they are going to step up.”

It is true that Nigerian airlines are seriously undergoing a lot of issues that make the services they offer look like charity. The toxic environment they operate has led to the collapse of over 100 airlines in the past 25 years; a record high for airlines in Africa. The Minister felt sorry for them.

He ordered the setting up of a committee to help unmask illegal charges and see ways to harmonise and reduce them. But it remains to be seen how other problems like the skyrocketing and scarcity of Forex, high cost of jet fuel, and others can be tackled to ensure the country does not experience any more airlines’ collapse.

The government has promised to assist them more especially on the Bilateral Air Services Agreements (BASA) by giving the routes that they apply for.

The Minister disclosed that the government would assist them but dismissed calls for multiple destination cancellations with foreign airlines. What he said the government would not tolerate is hopping from one city in the country to another.

Experts’ views

Speaking about his impression of the forum, Aligbe said, “I think this stakeholders forum is long overdue but it has also come at a time when everybody is waiting for something to happen and people came with that mindset and it is good and commendable. I hope that from there, they will take it to the next stage and see what happens. It is a commendable forum

“I sincerely believe that something will come out of it the way the minister spoke that he signed his Key Performance Index, so, everybody will do what is right and we are looking forward to it. I think that with him being in the past cabinet, he still has some residual information about the system that he can pull up. The way he spoke is ok because he spoke about the industry, talked about the people, passengers.”

The Acting Chief Executive Officer of Bicourtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL) operators of MMA2, Tosan Duncan-Odukoya said “We feel that years upon year upon years there has been a drive, a push, there is a new dawn and we listened to the Minister. He gave us a sense of hope and made us have an inner belief. This is the time. The world is waiting.

“COVID as much as it was a downside, it was a game changer, coming to change the perception of people. People suddenly realized that it is important and opened our eyes to why there are delays, where there are great projects that were not going anywhere, and former employees of our airlines have not been treated well. Every single issue that was raised was attended to. These are things that should not be overlooked anymore and we have hope for the Minister that this time around, things will work,” she added.

Secretary of Aviation Round Table (ART), Olumide Ohunayo expressed his joy with the forum, saying that the Minister impressed him with his action.

He brought everything down today and made stakeholders open up. I am happy we went beyond airlines today; all sectors and we must do something to make the airlines grow. You cannot grow in isolation.“

Last line

Not a few hoped that the stakeholders’ forum would usher in a fresh breath for aviation. There seems to be a fresh vista of hope for a sector that urgently needs a rescue. Hope Keyamo will bring the changes required to reposition the country’s aviation industry.

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