Dearth of skilled manpower compounds aviation woes

Dearth of skilled manpower in Nigeria’s aviation has compounded the woes of the industry, Woleshadarenews has learnt. This is said to be threatening the ability of the industry to meet her safety oversight functions. This problem is, however, not limited to the aviation sector in Nigeria.

For the past nine years, a major obstacle in Africa’s inability to meet its safety oversight functions is the lack of requisite competent manpower.

President, Nigerian Aviation Safety Initiative (NASI), Capt. Dung Pam, quoting the World Bank, said tertiary enrolment for developing countries stood at 10 per cent of the population compared to 56 per cent for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

He noted that it is evident that Africa will find it challenging to produce the number of development professionals needed to sustain economic growth in the aviation sector without a serious change in her educational and labour policies.

Aircraft giant, Boeing, had recently predicted that Africa needs to provide an additional 725 pilots and 810 aircraft engineers every year for the next 20 years to be able to man it’s aviation sector planned capacity.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said globally, in the next 20 years, airlines would have to add 25,000 new aircraft to the current 17,000-strong commercial fleet.

By 2026, airlines would need 480,000 new technicians to maintain these aircraft and over 350,000 pilots to fly them. Between 2005 and 2015, 73 per cent of the American air traffic controller population was eligible for retirement. Nigeria’s population is said to be 18 per cent of Africa’s, hence, the need to provide the appropriate 18 per cent of the manpower.

This comes to precisely 130 additional pilots and 146 new engineers every year. Pam noted that failure to meet this target means that Africa will have to mitigate the shortfall by employing expatriates. His words: “These will eventually lead to repatriating both the acquired skills and revenue back to their home countries to the detriment of this continent.

The problem could have been eliminated if the promised academic upgrade and expansion of the Nigerian College of Aviation technology (NCAT) had been carried out long time ago.”

Also, former Assistant Secretary General of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), Mohammed Tukur, lamented that the growth of indigenous manpower in the aviation sector came to abrupt end when the airline stopped training pilots and engineers.

The situation, he said, was exacerbated by the many years of the neglect of the NCAT. In this regard, even pilots and other professionals, whose parents and airlines wanted to train in the college, could not graduate because there was no equipment to train them.

Tukur disclosed that in the next 20 years, over one million pilots, engineers, technicians, cabin crew and air traffic controllers would be required to keep the global industry running, adding that for the air transport sector to remain safe, efforts must be put in place by countries to bridge the manpower gap.

Sector analysts say it is only through the provision of the requisite technical manpower that safety can be guaranteed in the sector and incessant air mishap stopped.

Wole Shadare