Travel News

By Shola Adekola

Nigeria’s domestic carriers lose at least N4.3 billion annually due to their restriction to operate 24 hours flight daily to the airports of their choice.

Revealing this on Thursday was the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Ibom Air, Mr George Uriesi, while delivering a paper at the 26th annual conference organized by the League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC) with the theme: ‘Sunset Airports: Economic and Safety Implications’, held in Lagos.

While describing the lack of 24 hours flight operations to major routes across Nigeria as impediment to the growth of the airlines, Uriesi in his paper titled:  ‘Maximizing Runway Utilisation: A Nigerian Airline Perspective,’ lamented how the domestic carriers were losing an average of N4 million per flight, N12 million in every flight, N360 million in 90 flights totaling N4.3 billion annually on every flight lost to sunset airport operations.

The restriction, he said had led to a huge underutilization of aircraft fleets by the local carriers as against the global industry standards just as he declared: “This is due partly because of too many impediments in the operating environment that limit airline productivity. These include limited runway availability across the domestic network, multiple operational infrastructure deficiencies, poor organization and many others.”

Speaking on the way out, the Ibom Air COO urged the federal government to prioritize airfield infrastructure and provide the necessary Instrument Landing System (ILS) and accompanying accessories for every airport, while also keeping the aerodromes open to meet the needs of airlines and other users.

He equally advised that the government should make current, approved master plans a regulatory requirement for every airport and illegalize non-adherence to the master plans by any organization, saying: “Establishing a local aircraft lessor /financing vehicle that would allow for the domiciling of aircraft payments in local currency would make a huge difference to the air transport sector in Nigeria.”