AVIATION COMMITS: implementation and sustainability are key to delivery

A couple of days ago industry players were gathered at the Oriental
hotel Lekki, at the instance of the Honourable Minister Aviation for
the public presentation of Aviation Commit Initiative. In his words
"It is a compendium of the industry commitments and initiative aimed
at repackaging, rebranding and redirecting the industry towards
enhanced service delivery and customer satisfaction".

In achieving these objectives he directed members of the committees on
accident report and aeronautical charges to liaise with the requisite
agency heads and institutions for an accelerated implementation of
their findings. The minister went further by
highlighting some decisions he has consented to before proceeding with
the public presentation of the aviation commit manual.

The minster in his presentation said he had directed NCAA to publish
the list of private operators who should not operate commercial
flights, while all commercial flights being flown in the country must
have a Nigerian in the cockpit irrespective of aircraft type. He went
further by promising to address the issue of foreign registered
carriers and the disparity in different charges on fares offered by
the local airlines.  He also talked about airline recapitalisation and
liberalisation subtly tagged African single sky.

Most of the issues relating to private jet, foreign registration and
Nigerian content are enshrined in our regulations, acts and policies.
Why have implementation and enforcement been difficult all these while?
Why has the NCAA deliberately looked the other way? What has made the
private jet operators so powerful that every minister comes with the
same threat and become selective or partisan in implementation?  What
is new this time are the word "Commit", and a timeline which is not
necessary for those who have commercially raped the system.

The committee on aeronautical charges was on point on the issue of
multiple and overlapping  charges which the different agencies must
address to improve and attract carriers. The agencies will have some
distortions in the anticipated revenue since they have to reduce or
eliminate some of the multiple charges while in the same breath 
commit to a 100% increase in internal revenue generation in a
timeframe of less than a year without giving a base figure.

The mathematics here is suspicious considering the huge overhead
burden inherited by all the agencies and the gross excitement of
impressing the minister. Even AIB the investigator is making such
commitment.

On recapitalisation, I will want to reiterate my humble disagreement
on the issue of recapitalisation as a panacea to the problem of our
airlines. It will only ensure we once again progress in error and
deceit, these airlines in-conjunction with their bankers will prefer
to see the airlines limping than being taken to the theatre for
surgical operations.

We must abort the fanciful flight of recapitalisation and board the
fleet consolidation by regulation flight that will move minimum fleet
from two to ten. Fleet is a physical asset that can be seen and
verified it will sanitise operations while improving safety and
profitability.

On liberalisation and single African sky, the minister needs to thread
softly, slowly and diplomatically. Liberalisation in the skies is a
different ball game entirely. It is usually parroted, documented and
encouraged but opaque in implementation.

The US proponents of open skies have refused to sign with china,
while the unions and airlines are asking them to review that of the
gulf carriers. The pressure from American carriers has delayed the
take off Norwegian low cost carrier from Dublin to New York despite
meeting all the regulatory laws and conditions.

We signed open skies with the US and had a five year head start which
we fritter away till this moment because the decision was hasty with no
carrier(s) to capitalise on it. The African single sky being proposed
is a baby of Ethiopia airlines (ET) and government and the target is
to operate to Europe, Far East and America from Lagos and Abuja. It's
a subtle cabotage that we will make us the usual sitting giant.

ET claimed the conditions are not ripe to invest in Nigeria but the same conditions have given them
the highest frequencies and points into the country. Rather they have
chosen to invest and partner other African countries such as Togo, Rwanda,
Malawi, Congo and Zambia.

In some recent publications in Nigeria, the CEO buttressed his call
for single African sky because it has worked well in Europe but
deliberately side stepped the ownership structure of those airlines.

The caveat in liberalisation is collaboration; those airlines that are
benefiting from the single sky policy are not solely owned by a
government or person though protected by their respective government.

If ET wants a single sky policy ownership structure must be diluted
therefore, they should offload a certain percentage to countries that
contribute to their total payload rather than grandstand using our politicians and selected media outlets.

Nigeria is simply not ready neither do we have an airline that can represent us at the moment, we should tarry a
while and learn from previous mistakes.

In concluding, the Aviation Commit was a good initiative but
implementation and sustenance are the key attributes that may hinder
its objectives. I also noticed the chief executives signing the
documents gleefully while their subordinates were committed to be
sanctioned in the manuals and in some cases not carried along in the
new initiative.

-- 
olu
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