‘Excessive charges, harsh environment choke Nigerian airlines’ operations’

Following the crash of Associated Embraer plane that killed 15 persons while conveying the corpse of Olusegun Agagu, former Ondo State governor, to Akure, it has been revealed that domestic airline operators are heavily burdened with sundry charges, especially from aviation agencies.

Associated Aviation, operator of the crashed plane is one of the many charter operators that is still contesting the new charges imposed on them by government.

Apart from charter or non-scheduled operators, commercial schedule carriers have had to cope with charges ranging from passenger service charge, cargo sales charge, fuel surcharge, landing and parking charges, among others.

“Although, operators are supposed to imbibe 100 percent safety regulations, in recent times, it is like government has suddenly forgotten the most important aspect of aviation which is safety and are concentrating on how the operators will pay this and that. There is no adequate maintenance facility for the airlines and government is not talking about that.

“Two weeks ago, the Ministry increased crew access fee from N2,000 to N250,000, a situation that the airlines are not comfortable with. This means that before you can drive a car conveying the crew into the aircraft foot, you have to now cough out N250,000.”
 This is different from the $3,000 (N480,000), and $4,000 (N640,000) in contention.

“What we are saying is that it seems as if safety is being commercialised at the expense of the lives of Nigerians; the airlines are heavily indebted to AMCON in the form of a bailout that only favoured the banks. “Many of them struggle to pay salaries and rather than allow the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to its job, the reverse is the case,” Muhammed Tukur, former spokesman for airline operators, said.

John Ojikutu, another analyst, noted that “there is need to reassess the new policies where many of the new charges emanated from; there is need to reassess also, the over-commercialisation of safety and security for the sake of the airlines.”

The charter and private airline sub-sector in the air transport sector have in recent times suffered losses and setbacks as many aircraft and souls have been lost to crashes.

Beginning from OAS helicopter, Wings aviation aircraft, Cessna citation aircraft that crashed in Yola; and a chattered military aircraft that killed Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa, former Kaduna State governor and the current Associated aircraft, the sub-sector has been hit financially.

Analysts say coupled with the recent charges imposed on the operators, these are not the best of times for non-scheduled operators as they have to cope with a lot of charges and challenges in the sector.
“Event though they are the luxury carriers who are supposed to be the bedrock of the sector financially, the new charges is a big one that the operators are still not comfortable with.

“How much will they charge customers when you impose such charges on them? There is too much pressure on the operators; that will make them to also focus on profit rather than safety,” Tukur, added.
Culled from Businessday