Our strategy for sustained, profitable operations-Medview MD

Alhaji Muneer Bankole is the Managing Director of Medview Airline. He is a consummate administrator. In this interview with woleshadare.net in Monrovia when the carrier launched services to Accra, Freetown and Monrovia on Tuesday, he speaks about integrating Africa by air, the economics of aircraft acquisition and how to remain profitable in the murky waters of air transportation business, among other issues. Excerpt

We are preaching what we call integration. We are from West Africa; we have to unite the people. We have 15 Heads of State of countries that are united. Who will carry them? People come from East Africa, selling tickets at $2000 for a destination of four hours. People come from Morocco, North Africa, where are the people from West Africa? That is why we are here.

That is the example of what we are seeing on the domestic from. We came together in 2012, we have been consistent and you have seen that on the ground. That is what you have seen in London. We went there. God has been on our side. That is what we did in Saudi Arabia. We have been there for ten years and we are still there. So, if we open a route we remain there. This route has come to stay because we don’t just open routes, we consolidate. It took us six months to sit down and say we want to be on this route. We went through some logistics, business development. One thing with Medview, we have invested much on manpower. You see them smiling. You saw our staff both in Nigeria and other places. If they are not happy, they won’t show this level of enthusiasm. People in West Africa have been integrated. One thing with Medview is that we invest so much on manpower.

The government that we have should support their own, make the environment enabling for airlines to survive. The only product that you have in your country in terms of boosting your economy and selling your image outside is the airline. You can see me talk with the Minister of a country, talk to Prime Minister of Guinea Bissau, if not for the airline, it won’t be possible. Nigerian government should think twice and see what they can do. This is the only window. They have assured that they want to help in the area of fuel, we hope they will do this as they have promised. Fuel is a lot of problem.

Let me give you a secret. For you to run a project, you must do your cost analysis and ask yourself if it pays you. London is six hours flight. You run an aircraft. Most of our colleagues make mistakes. Medview owns this aircraft that we operated to Monrovia and Free Town. You don’t buy an aircraft out rightly; you go on lease purchase, you conserve your capital to probably 24 months. We own these properties. How do we own them? We master our cash flow; we consolidate on our Naira so that the Banks can see something to work with us so that we can fly this aircraft that we are flying now. So, they give us loans to do what we are doing. That has reduced our hardship, our overhead and not looking for dollar to pay anybody. This aircraft as it is going now has its cost. The people flying this aeroplane are paying for this aircraft. I am just like a passenger inside this aircraft. We put a cost on this aeroplane; we put a cost on the fuel on this aeroplane, how much fuel you will take as a burn off. On this route now, we calculated the fuel in and out and we knew very well how much it cost us, we calculated the number of passengers. Some airlines charge $2000 between here and Ghana; we started with $580 and $600 now. You can see the number for the first flight. When I get to Accra from Freetown there won’t even be available seats on this aircraft. May be we will offload some of you in Accra and spend a night there.

We have been using this aircraft every winter. You have seen it over the years. We have a partnership with an European carrier, they trusted us, believe in our integrity and our pedigree over the years. What we say is what we do. We have been able to tell them. Now in Europe, it is winter, they have a challenge. What we do every year, we call for the aircraft to support our operations because Nigerians travel a lot. We have opened Owerri; we have opened Enugu; we have opened Port-Harcourt direct flights five times a week to Owerri right from today. We have opened a lot of routes. We have opened Freetown, Monrovia and Accra, so you can understand where we are heading to and by the Grace of God, we are already in Dubai. In couple of days, we will be in Dubai.

The issue of insurance is dollar domiciled. Nigerian insurance companies have no capacity to carry the brunt. The entire Nigerian insurance companies including brokers, about 26 of them have only 15 per cent capacity to carry, the rest are willed out to European and other countries. So, what happens here is that whatever you pay on insurance is equally dollar, so what the insurance people are doing is a two way thing. Some of our colleagues have done something bad, they have disappointed in paying the premium as at when due. So, the people are now saying, gentlemen, you are having crisis, don’t wait until something happens, you need to pay your premium, it is a commitment. Everything I am doing here today is to go through some of the processes myself. This is my way of life. I fly like this. I go through it so that nobody will tell me a story. I know the people in Monrovia and I am here to know their problems, discuss their problems and we move on.