…as stakeholders differ on path forward
By Dickson Omobola
Last week, former Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr Hadi Sirika, revived conversations around the failed national carrier project, Nigeria Air.
Since the drama of May 26, 2023, when a Boeing 737-800, reportedly owned by Ethiopian Airlines, ET, and covered with Nigeria Air sticker, landed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, NAIA, Abuja, many who spoke about the agreement desisted from doing so due to the shame it brought.
In fact, but for the question thrown at the former minister on air, he might not have revisited the issue till the release of his “book.”
Speaking about the failed project on the Morning Brief, a Channels TV programme, Sirika was quick to exonerate himself, laying the blame for the unsuccessful arrangement with ET on three domestic airlines: Air Peace, United Nigeria Airlines and Azman.
He said: “We had an airline, but some people (Air Peace, United and Azman) went to court to say that we cannot establish an airline where we take five per cent. That was what stalled it. By today, if there was no court case, and the government (President Bola Tinubu administration) that came in had pursued the court case, we would have had an airline. All that we did to establish Nigeria Air, we had taken to the final step before these people now went to court.”
Court case
Back in 2022, some domestic carriers, specifically Azman Air, Air Peace, Max Air, Top brass Aviation and United Nigeria Airlines, under the aegis of Airline Operators of Nigeria, AON, sued Federal Government for violating processes to start a new national carrier and its decision to select ET as the core investor.
In the suit, they accused the Ministry of Aviation of not complying with the three stages of the public procurement process as stipulated in the Act of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission, ICRC, which include advertisement and review.
On November 15, 2022, a Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos, issued an Order of Interim Injunction restraining federal government and other parties from executing the arrangement of the national carrier.
The lawsuit came to an end on August 5, 2024, when a Federal High Court in Lagos declared the sale and selection process for the proposed national carrier null and void.
In the ruling, Justice Lewis-Allagoa declared that the Nigeria Air deal violated multiple aviation, corporate, procurement and investment laws.
Consequently, it was not surprising that the legal conflict the national carrier agreement created between Sirika and the AON forced the ex-Minister to play the blame game.
Routine question
In any case, his subsequent statement, showed he doubted the capacity of Nigerian airlines to compete. Many would not agree with him on that.
Sirika said: “Talking about ET. 95 per cent of all airlines operating in Africa are not African, such as British Airways, Qatar, Air France, among others. ET has been running an airline for 79 years. They have made a statement on how to run an airline, and they are Africans.
“They came to partner with us to be able to open the world up to us. Today, the price of a ticket from Abuja to London is more expensive than from Accra to London, and the reason is that we do not have a formidable airline with such capacity. We have seen Air Peace and Azman before. When I say we have seen them, I mean we have seen Kabo, which was much bigger than all of them. We saw Okada, Arik. They all came and went. What is amiss is the capacity they need to build to compete with people who have 250 aeroplanes. I do not think an airline that has five aircraft can compete in the global market with well-established carriers and expect to operate and make profit.”
Compete
Bearing in mind his justification for the agreement with ET, his comment about competing on a worldwide scale has sparked arguments about the kind of airline Nigeria needs to compete globally.
At the 29th Annual League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents, LAAC, themed: ‘Financing Aviation in Nigeria: Risks, Opportunities and Threats,’ recently held in Lagos, industry stakeholders spoke to the issue.
Buoy up
Sharing his perspective, former General Manager of Public Affairs for defunct Nigeria Airways, Mr Chris Aligbe, now the Chief Executive Officer of Belujane Konzult, said: “In the aviation industry, every subsector is closely linked to one another. Today, we are in a vicious cycle. If the airlines do not do well, the airports won’t do well. It is the same for ground handlers. For us, the critical point is how to break this vicious cycle. For me, the airlines should be the breaking point.
“I think that if we don’t buoy up our airlines, we will not get to where we should be. No airport in this country will become a hub by depending on a foreign airline. I believe that our country is ripe to have no less than three formidable airlines that can serve Nigerians.
“The airlines should also begin to address their own internal issues. The airlines need to come together. The level they are operating at is the economies of scale, and with that low level of economies of scale, they may not make it.
National flag carrier
“I also believe in a national flag carrier. We cannot pull this country up without it. Look at our airlines, how many partners do they have? How many of our airlines earn foreign exchange? Without foreign exchange, you are dependent on what you access from the bank. If we do not put a laser beam on our airlines, and to wake them up, the industry will continue to suffer. We are in a vicious cycle, and we need to break it. The breaking point is the airlines.”
Environment
Unlike him, the Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria’s largest airline, Air Peace, Allen Onyema, said: “We have to give it to the Nigerian airlines, given the environment in which we operate. We do not appreciate our own. Air Peace has a partnership agreement with Emirates.”
Onyema, also the Vice Chairman of AON, further said: “For those airlines in this country that have gone down, it was not totally the fault of their owner. These owners succeeded in other businesses, but why is it that whenever one invests in an airline in Nigeria, the next thing is that the person is grounded, even though the owners are successful in other businesses?
Moribund
“The talk about national flag carrier is a moribund idea all over the world. Government has no business doing business. What we should continue to do is to elevate our own airlines. We (domestic operators) are carrying the burden of the entire industry. If we fail, the industry will continue to fail.
Cooperation
“It is not true that we (domestic airlines) don’t cooperate. In fact, we have our own spring alliances. If I have a problem, I can call Overland to take my passenger. Oftentimes, the problem lies in the fact that if you call the other airline, they may also be full. Whenever we want to compare our airlines to those abroad, we have to consider the environment in which Nigerian airlines operate. For instance, Air Peace flies to about nine countries in Africa, but we cannot easily transit passengers.
Hub
“You are told that airlines make hubs. No, airport infrastructure is needed to have a hub. Even though an airline has 200 aircraft, the country cannot have a hub unless the airport infrastructure is supportive. Air Peace carries passengers from Douala, Monrovia, Freetown, Banjul, Accra and Dakar, among others. We took passengers from Douala who were going to Dakar. When we got to Lagos, they were told to pay visa fees. Meanwhile, they were not going to Nigeria; they were only transiting through a Nigerian airport. Because the Nigerian airport has no transit facility, coupled with the numerous checks, they may never fly the airline again.
Thing of the past
“This current regime is doing a lot when it comes to aviation. They want to help the airlines, and I believe that within the next 22 months, this country will have a good airport that we will be proud of. If Nigerian airlines are given the right infrastructure, Ethiopian Airlines and the rest will be a thing of the past in the next 10 years.”
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