Recipe for survival
A piece of advice has gone to airlines in the country on how to survive the incessant shortage of aviation fuel and high cost of the item.
Head of the Corporate Information in the defunct Nigeria Airways and now aviation consultant,Mr.Chris Aligbe told newsmen at the just concluded 26th Conference of the League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents(LAAC) that airlines should choose one or two major importers and corporate with them rather than setting up a system to import fuel.
According to him,airline propriators do not have the infrastructure and the knowledge for now to import fuel because it would mean setting up a company that has the capacity for that.
“ So, they should corporate with existing companies and you can chose about two or three of them and work with to get fuel and when you discuss, you can input and see how things work.”
On wet leasing aircraft for Nigeria Air,Mr.Aligbe said there is nothing wrong with that.
“ I am happy that it has finally happened even though it would have been excellent if it was done months ago but it is better late than never.”
“ Most startups usually start with wet leasing particularly when you are still new and all the investors have not come in.”
“ It is when the investors come in and you have all the funds that you need that you begin to look at if you are going to take wet lease or dry lease”
He explained that wet leasing will give the operator some time to recruit and train people, that is why” I anticipate that the wet lease is not going to be for long before all the interested groups and investors come in and determine what kind of aircraft that they would need.”
“Would it be Boeing or Airbus? It is then that you can determine the people that you are going to train because you would have to train according to the aircraft type.”
On foreign exchange,he suggests that theCentral Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should identify the airline sub-sector as a major concern.
Unless,he said they do that, realising that it is the most effective transportation that we have that will keep the engine of the economy going, until they come to that point and do what they should do, which is to buy the necessary forex for them to continue operating, we would still remain where we are.
“The immediate causes of the closure of these airlines is forex and fuel although some of them have remote causes for their failure”,he said
