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‘Why Nigerian airlines aren’t benefiting from category 1 status’
Despite the successful scaling of the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Category 1 audit by Nigeria, the country’s airlines are yet to maximise the benefits of the Open Skies agreement between her and the United States of America (USA).
Nigeria scaled the hurdle of the audit of the safety status of the country’s civil aviation industry recently, making it to obtain, yet again, another Cat-1-Status. The retention of the Cat-1-Status is coming barely three months after FAA visited Nigeria for the audit.
One of the pre-conditions of the Open Skies pact between Nigeria and the U.S. is that both nations must be category one certified, which allows them to deploy their aircraft for flight operations into each other’s territory.
The inability to be certified as category one aviation nation would make the designated airline to lease aircraft from another category one state to be able to fly to the country.
Currently, no Nigerian carrier operates to the U.S. The U.S., before 2016, had two mega airlines – United and Delta – operated to Lagos and Abuja, while Arik did not provide the reciprocity to match them.
United, in 2016, stopped operations to Lagos, citing seized funds and the lull in the oil and gas sector globally, which was the core of passengers it serviced then.
Arik, on the other hand, stopped services to New York at the height of its crisis, which necessitated take-over by the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) as the Nigerian flag carrier was enmeshed in over N500 billion debts.
Some experts told Woleshadare.net under condition of anonymity that they believe that Category 1 serves no significant benefit to the country as all Nigerian airlines put together are very fragmented and weaker than the least carrier in America.
They said this could be described as Nigerian airlines just taking the crumbs while these mega airlines are making huge kill on the route.
Four U.S. airlines can afford to operate services to Nigeria without negatively affecting their bottom line, but no carrier from this nation has the funds, the managerial skill and good business model to upstage any of the U.S. airlines.
An aircraft pilot said: “A lot still needs to be done if Nigerian airlines are going to be taken seriously. It goes beyond Category 1 retention; it is about upping the ante to operate profitably and take advantage of this Category 1 rating by being a strong stakeholder and beneficiary that comes from this.”
Nigeria had, last week, retained the safety status. The U.S. apex aviation regulatory body, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), had visited Nigeria late last year to carry out audit on the country’s aviation and to see if the nation had closed all gaps it noticed when the team visited.
NCAA, before the full audit commenced in August 2017, carried out a ‘Dry Run’ on one of Nigerian carriers.
The Dry Run is akin to a mock exercise on the carrier of which this newspaper learnt the airline’s performance was okay and, being a carrier that may venture into the United States, the mock exercise on Med-view was apt and welcome to both CAA and the airline.
The main assessment began as the four-member team from the FAA have arrived Nigeria to conduct the audit, which took place from 21st to 25th August, 2017.
The team comprised of Louis A. Alvarez, Operation specialist, L.P. Vanstory; Airworthiness Specialist, Benjamin Garrido and Attorney Jeffrey Klang. They arrived the country to assess the State’s aviation law, regulations and oversight capability in accordance with the eight critical elements as defined in ICAO 9734.
Under the International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) programme, the FAA determines whether another country’s oversight of its air carriers that operate, or seek to operate, into the U.S., or codeshare with a U.S. air carrier, complies with safety standards established by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
IASA assessments determine compliance with these international Standards by focusing on the eight critical elements of an effective aviation safety oversight authority specified in ICAO Document 9734, Safety Oversight Manual.
The eight critical elements include (I) primary aviation legislation; (ii) specific operating regulations; (iii) State civil aviation system and safety oversight functions; (iv.) technical personnel qualification and training; (v.) technical guidance, tools and the provision of safety critical information; (vi.) licensing, certification, authorization, and approval obligations; (vii.) surveillance obligations; and (viii.) resolution of safety concerns.
In addition, during the assessment, the team will need to visit the facilities of an Airline Operators Certificate (AOC) holder. They will look at the operations and maintenance organisations.
In 2010, Nigeria overwhelmed the international community when it scored over 93 per cent, a performance described as one of the highest at that time.
In 2010, Nigeria overwhelmed the international community when it scored over 93 per cent, a performance described as one of the highest at that time.
