Following the signing of the Cape Town Convention, CTC Practice Direction, Airline Operators of Nigeria, AON, yesterday warned it would not solve all the problems plaguing Nigeria’s air transport sector.
Vice President of AON, Dr Allen Onyema, said while signing of the CTC Practice Direction was a forward thinking approach, the country’s airport infrastructures needed to be improved and airport terminals built to enable Nigeria become a force in the industry.mo
Onyema, however, noted that with the signing of the CTC Practice Direction, domestic operators could now acquire more aircraft under relaxed conditions, adding that it would deepen their capacity and lead to reduction in airfares.
Speaking on Arise TV programme, the Chief Executive Officer of Air Peace explained that with more capacity, there would be better interconnectivity for travellers.
He said: “The Cape Town Convention thing alone cannot solve all the problems and everybody knows that. The airport infrastructure has to be improved upon. Airport terminals should be built.
”A situation whereby you don’t have transit facilities is going to hinder the profitability or the ease of doing business on the airlines.
”For instance, Air Peace flies to about 10 African countries, but we have not been able to bring people here like they do in Togo, and assemble people there, then start distributing.
“Midwifing the signing of this practice direction has kind of helped the airlines, the local airlines, now to up their capacity. People have been talking about lack of capacity in the industry, but I give it to the Nigerian airlines.
”These airlines have been doing so well, considering the challenges, considering the circumstances in which they found themselves.”
“With the signing of this practice direction, it means the leasing world will now start leasing aircraft to Nigeria. We are talking about capacity here. If I spent $80 million buying one of my brand new planes, I ordered 13 of the E195-E2. Five have already come in. The amount of money expended on that five would give me about 200 aircraft.
“So, I don’t need to amass so much money now to start acquiring planes. For every Nigerian airline, those with five planes or three planes, those that have three planes, the cost of acquiring those three aircraft, whether used aircraft or brand new, even used one, could afford 20 or 30 aircraft.
”This will help in bringing prices down. This will increase interconnectivity because I have a lot of planes.”
