Maintenance hangar: Nigerian carriers on a cliff-hanger

Non-existence of maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) has impaired the growth of local carriers and may be linked to some of the tragic accidents that had claimed many souls in the past. WOLE SHADARE writes

 

Hangar

Curbing capital flight

Air transport business is highly challenging and involves complex and capital intensive operations. Major operational hubs in the world have well-developed MRO facilities and the technical expertise to carry out major checks on aircraft.
Nigeria has about 350 aircraft that are ferried overseas for major repairs resulting in ridiculous capital flights.
Stakeholders say if Nigeria is to embark on functional MRO, various cost drivers such as aircraft characteristic, aircraft utilisation, economics of scale, fleet age, fleet composition, maintenance input costs,
maintenance philosophy, maintenance planning, maintenance programme design, market positioning, network design, operational practices, and productivity amongst others, would need careful considerations.

Repositioning the sector

Not a few believe that the aviation industry in Nigeria needs proper positioning of its value chains: operate, maintain, assembly, manufacture and design.
Ability to design and manufacture a commercial aircraft with 100+-carry capacity might not be feasible within the next decade.
However, the sector must begin to sustainably operate, maintain and assemble in that progressive order. The newly built maintenance hangar in Uyo Airport is lying fallow despite several billions of naira expended by the state government.
It is however, a welcoming concept for others to improve upon. It is imperative that its full and sustainable implementation would include a paradigm shift in the current maintenance framework that constraints aircraft operators to look outside the shore of Nigeria for their heavy maintenance checks at the detriments of Nigerian economy.
The air transport services in Nigeria have been growing since mid-80’s and early 90’s with deregulation and emergence of domestic airlines.
Expectedly, there has been a corresponding increase in Gross Domestic Products (GDP). The air transport industry generates and supports 6.7 million jobs in Africa and contributes$67.8 billion to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – direct, indirect and induced.

Growing the sector

The contribution of air transport in Nigeria is expected to grow by five per cent annually in the next 20 years.
Admittedly, increasing demands has enabled airlines to contribute about $0.4 chalbillion and 61,000 jobs to the emerging Nigerian economy.
Regrettably, despite the forecast growth, the number of airlines in Nigeria depreciated to the extent that most of the early starters no longer exist. It has been reported that of the 30 airlines operating in the 1990’s, there remain only seven operating scheduled flights in 2010.
The seven airlines currently operating schedule flights are Medview, Overland, Air Peace, Aero, Arik, Dana and FirstNation. Undoubtedly, inconsistent regulatory policies, deteriorating infrastructure with obsolete facilities, negligence and managerial incompetence, contributed to the failings.

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Lackadaisical attitude

Airlines negligence of industry best practices in aircraft operations and maintenances, has contributed to several aircraft crashes and folding up of airlines while managerial incompetence led to fund misappropriations, manpower mismanagement and high indebtedness.
Specifically, the lack of Sustainable Aircraft Maintenance Hangars (SAMH) has negatively impacted on Nigerian airlines and their ability to operate sustainably in an inherently complex and dynamic global air transport industry.
The defunct Nigerian Airways Limited once had 32 aircraft but was later infected with aviation viruses amongst which are the lack of MRO.
It later deteriorated, fell, buried and left unserviceable aircraft as inheritance. Its disciples in the form of pilots, engineers and flight attendants are scattered in and outside Nigeria – many of who are now old and aged!
Attempts to create indigenous airlines in Nigeria have met with similar plagues to those encountered by NAL and the evolving results have been the saddening ‘evolve and collapse’ syndrome.
Major operational hubs in the world have well developed airports, a well-equipped MRO facilities and the technical expertise to carry out major checks on their aircraft fleets.

Advantages of MRO

Therefore, the importance of MRO cannot be overlooked for aircraft owners and airline operators considering the fact that history positioned that air transport businesses “only” survives on a standard and functional maintenance environment where airworthiness of aircraft for optimum safety is crucial for business survival.
Nigeria has about 350 aircraft in operations (scheduled, charter and privately owned) that are ferried overseas for major repairs resulting in a ridiculous capital flights. South Africa, Egypt, Morocco and Ethiopia have workable MRO facilities as well as airports that operate as hubs.
Regrettably, many03the Nigerian airlines take their aircraft to these countries; while others proceed to Europe and the US for repairs at exorbitant financial penalty.

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Aircraft delays

More so, the aircraft are paced in queue for weeks before they are attended to.
Given the complex facility requirements and the needed investment, it would be an uphill task for a single airline to build a SAMH in Nigeria.
Historically, the approach taken to addressing the issues in relation to the establishment of sustainable aircraft maintenance framework has not lend itself to understanding the critical challenges and inherent problems confronting the industry and hence, prevented the opportunity to proffer the needed solutions.
The setbacks confronted by Nigerian airlines include lack of qualified and knowledgeable airline operators; low or minimal financial base; bankruptcy; aircraft accidents and incidents.
The systemic failures of the airline industry can be traced to unsustainable aircraft maintenance policies resulting from ageing aircraft, lack of appropriate maintenance personnel and non -availability of aircraft hangars where proper.

Dilemma

In 2013, the former Director General, of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Dr. Harold Olusegun Demuren, lamented that Nigerian airlines spent over $1.22 billion (N200 billion) annually on overseas checks due to lack of any major maintenance facility in the country.
He stressed the need for partnership between the government and private investors to establish a local maintenance facility that could save the airlines over 50 per cent of maintenance costs and make Nigeria a technical hub for aircraft maintenance.
In practical terms, the time taken for overseas maintenance could be more than two weeks and up to months before they are attended to.
This is in addition to the prohibitive cost of overseas maintenance. MRO costs encompass both the outgoing costs and the revenue forgone during the out-of-service time.
The process of taking aircraft overseas for repairs takes a minimum of two weeks with a corresponding loss of about $426,830 (N70 million) for C check on Boeing 737, while Embraer 190 or Fokker 100 would have lost $298,780 (N49 million) during the same period.
These huge losses could be easily curtailed given the existence of MRO in Nigeria. It is important to note that airlines leasing aircraft are normally required to make payments into one or more maintenance reserve accounts in order to provide for future maintenance expenditures.
This would have been another boost to the Nigerian economy; regrettably it is an alternative forgone.

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Lack of foresight

Unfortunately, Nigerian airspace has ever been laden with carriers that could not attract adequate funding without government’s support to build a MH of the size and capacity that are required by modern airliners registered in Nigeria.
It might however, be viable for major players such as Arik Air, Aero Contractors, Medview Airline etc to participate on building SAMH projects but the issues of modern and licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineers (AME) need to be given serious considerations.
Provision of enabling environment with the adequate government support would attract national and foreign investors in enabling MRO to build and operate SAMH in supporting Nigerian airlines in their pursuit for sustainable development.
An aircraft engineer, who spoke to woleshadare.net on condition of anonymity, stated that specifically, the government support should enable a long time single digit interest rate if aviation is to significantly contribute to wealth generation, create a viable employment and improve the safety standard in the Nigerian airspace. Double digits (plus 13 per cent) interest rate, he noted, would encourage airlines to compromise crucial cost elements that would negatively impact on safety and sustainability of the industry.

Stakeholders’ views

Over the years, stakeholders have been arguing for the establishment of MRO facilities where airlines could conduct ‘C and D Checks’ in Nigeria.
Aircraft maintenance checks are periodic inspections that have to be performed on civil airliners after certain amount of time or usage as approved by airworthiness authority (i.e. NCAA).

Conclusion

Nigeria has the largest and most modern commercial aircraft fleet in West and Central Africa but lacks an MRO facility;
its airlines have been urged to build a cooperative alliance with global industry stakeholders (including viable investors) that support an indigenous and economically viable MRO facility that would address the industry needs and aspirations.

Wole Shadare