Why Nigeria is yet to have maintenance hangar, by aviation experts

Fifteen years after the Federal Government partnered with the private sector to build aircraft maintenance hangar, the project seems to have been abandoned, WoleshadareNews has learnt.

Experts said that the country would have saved over $300 million if the facility were built then, adding that it would cost over $600 million to build one now, considering the depreciation of naira against the dollar.

This is coming as there are deafening calls for an aircraft maintenance hangar as a way of ameliorating the pain of airlines who have to source for forex to ferry their airplanes to Egypt, South Africa, Morocco, Ethiopia and Europe for the repairs of their equipment. In 2001, efforts were made by an American firm to establish a national aircraft hangar at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos.

The project did not take off because of certain issues including high-level politics. For some years, foreign and domestic airlines as well as some industry players have been contemplating establishing a hangar. Plans by the German carrier, Lufthansa, to build a hangar in Abuja, which was expected to serve as a major hub for aircraft repairs in West, Central and other parts of Africa also did not materialise.

Aviation security consultant, Group Captain John Ojikutu (rtd), said building an aircraft maintenance facility for the repair of small jets would cost about $400 million, while a maintenance repair facility to handle bigger airplanes such as B737 and A310, A319 could double.

He regretted that Nigerian airlines would have saved a lot of money and perhaps still be in operation if government was serious about the sector many years ago, wondering if that would be possible again considering the tough economic reality occasioned by the recession the country is currently grappling with.

Aviation safety advocate and a pilot, Capt Dung Rwang Pam, regretted that the national hangar project that was vigorously pursued by a former Minister of Aviation, Mrs. Kema Chikwe, between 2001 and 2002, was shrouded in secrecy.

He added: “Nobody knows what has happened to it.” Pam stated that most standard aircraft maintenance facilities are even more expensive than setting up an airline.

He said a good and standard aircraft Maintenance Repair Overhaul (MRO) mush has the ability to handle heavy airplanes, power plans, repainting facility and avionics, stressing that the government should be willing to enter into partnership with a private sector to build one in Lagos or any other place it deem necessary.

Nigeria has about 350 aircraft that are ferried overseas for major repairs, resulting in ridiculous capital flights.

Pam noted that an average C-check costs $1 million, adding that by today’s exchange rate of N310/$1, this can be conservatively N310 million per aircraft every 18 months.

Chief Executive Officer of Aero Contractors, Capt. Fola Akinkuotu, explained that in the agreement, the aircraft maintenance facility owners may charge a very attractive standard C-Check fee of $500,000, there are usually findings which are beyond the quoted cap that must be rectified when the aircraft gets to the facility and the actual work begins and panels are opened.

He noted that this is where the huge difference comes in that dramatically raises the final C-Check cost.

Justifying the need for an indigenous MRO, the aircraft pilot said it would bring significant savings to airlines and not only increase their survivability but also ensure that such capital can be applied to purchasing more airplanes to strengthen the carriers’ operations and schedule reliability, create more jobs for pilots, engineers and other category of airline staff.

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.

Wole Shadare