BASA/WORLD BANK FUNDS: NOT FOR PILOT/ENGINEERS TRAINING

BASA/WORLD BANK FUNDS: NOT FOR PILOT/ENGINEERS TRAINING
(Article written September 2009)

It was widely reported by the media that the government is planning to use part of the World Bank loan and BASA fund for the training of pilots and engineers for the aviation industry.
The idea is a good one for a country that is in acute need of pilots and engineers, at the teething stage of civil aviation with a verifiable national carrier or carriers owned and managed by the public, which is not the case in Nigeria.

What we are witnessing is a certain generation of pilots and engineers who were trained with government funds and patriotically chose to remain in the country are approaching retirement; while the younger ones are flying for the general and private aviation companies within and outside Nigeria. The generational gap can be traced to the comatose state of the foremost civil aviation training centre in Nigeria, Nigerian Civil Aviation Technology (NCAT), some years back. The situation forced many young Nigerians to go abroad, notably South Africa, United States of America and United Kingdom to fulfil their dream, while some returned home, others stayed back to build their career. NCAT is changing for the better with the injection of funds and equipment which culminated in the recent graduation of pilots and engineers. This was hitherto a mirage.

A pre-requisite for an Air Operating Certificate (AOC) for airlines is the ability to demonstrate, in your documentation that you have certified, proficient professionals manning the Operations and Maintenance departments, which will be verified before issuance. Also, it will be sour news to hear that Nigerian airlines are cancelling flights or scaling down schedules like their counterpart in Australia (Rex Aviation) due to pilot shortage. Happily it has not happened except in cases of improper planning by the operations department or other socio-political reasons such as riots, strike e.t.c.

The airlines are not complaining of inadequate pilots or engineers when they regularly advertise, poach or train Nigerians within and outside the country. This is a corporate responsibility they must and have willingly undertaken like their counterparts world over.

Presently, governments of different countries fund training of pilots and engineers in their military and para-military organizations, while in the past, some developing countries trained pilots and engineers for budding national carriers.

The Indian government did for Air India and Indian Airlines, Ethiopia for Ethiopian Airlines. It is also a norm for Middle Eastern public owned carriers. The Chinese did it for its numerous governments regulated and managed airlines. All these airlines were publicly owned at that period. The best of those pilots and engineers were lost to poachers from the richer Middle East and Asian airlines.

The Nigerian government was no exception when the industry was regulated, managed and operated with public funds, using the liquidated Nigeria Airways as a platform to train pilots and engineers.
Replicating what happened in other countries, we lost some of them to poachers, and others remained in Nigeria flying for different local carriers. Today, some of those pilots and engineers are dominant in the industry. To verify, check the instructors in NCAT, the Licensing, Training and Airworthiness departments of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and other sensitive positions in general and private aviation.
Although, there was a lull during the comatose days of NCAT, airlines such as Arik, Aero, Bristow, Virgin Nigeria have been training and re-training pilots, engineers and other professionals within and outside Nigeria, as a statutory responsibility.

The airlines should be left with this responsibility as enshrined in their corporate responsibility, with an embedded mechanism called bonding, which keeps itinerant pilots and engineers at bay.

The countries referred to above and hopefully our dear fatherland, Nigeria has moved beyond herding students for ab-initio pilot and engineer training. Rather they are improving infrastructure, upgrading equipment, training the trainers and working assiduously to improve safety by updating rules and regulations using words like rules of proposed lawmaking or airworthiness directive.

The United States House Committee on Transport, an equivalent of our House Committee on Aviation has just submitted a Legislation that will dramatically increase the amount of flying experience required to obtain an airline pilot’s license. The bipartisan bill will also bolster pilot training, screening and professional development requirements. It was prompted by February’s regional airline crash in Buffalo, NY, that killed all 50 passengers and crew members.

The measure, approved through voice vote by the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, would boost minimum flight hours needed for a commercial pilot’s license to 1,500 flight hours from 250. Quoting, the Aviation Sub Committee Chairman Jerry F. Costello, D-Ill, “Two hundred-fifty hours is simply not enough experience to be an airline pilot.”

Under the bill, the Federal Aviation Administration would be required to ensure that pilots are properly trained on how to recover from stalls and airlines will have to establish mentoring and leadership training programs for pilots. Comprehensive pre-employment screening will be required, as would creation of a database to give airlines access to a pilot’s comprehensive record.

It is noteworthy that some countries are overhauling airline training programs for aircraft crew members, engineers and flight dispatchers, while also proposing that the Air Traffic Control (ATC) system, which is a 24-hour, high-tech service business, trapped inside government bureaucracy in most countries, be modernized to improve safety and efficiency in the airspace. It has an acronym, NEXTGEN, (replacing radar surveillance with ADS-B)


To further buttress the appalling safety level noticed globally this year, Flight International, a publisher of aviation related information, is of the opinion that global airline safety has stopped improving for the first time in aviation's history, going by the accident figures for the first half of 2009.
It feels that without a dramatic improvement in performance during the remainder of this year and the whole of 2010, the world will have witnessed the first decade since the Wright Brothers when safety standards remained static.

The ‘Flight Safety Foundation’, said if safety is to improve beyond what we see now, airlines have to go "beyond compliance" - to do more than just meet regulatory minimum standards. The first point at which that message needs to be applied is in pilot training.

From the above, the emphasis now is not ab-initio training of pilots, but further training and increasing the stakes for certification, proficiency and conversion in the interest of safety and the flying public.


Why should a government that has no national carrier, is ceding critical services in the industry to the private sector while gradually pulling out of the industry except in the areas of regulation and oversight be investing loans or BASA fund on training pilots and engineers for the airlines privately owned business moguls, bank chief executives and jet age preachers, who have acquired private jets and are poaching from the industry rather than training. Is this not robbing the public to pay the rich?

Our airlines are embattled commercially, considering two are technically grounded, three are committed to EFCC as a result of nonperforming loans, one is being hounded by international passengers and others are downsizing, withdrawing from international route, reducing schedules and delaying deliveries of aircraft.
You may then ask, when these awardees pilots and engineers will be graduating there may not be an airline to absorb them and most importantly give the necessary flying hours needed for exposure, certification and progression in the profession. So they will have to look offshore or fly private jets of the proponents of this idea.

The government should rather use the money as a soft loan to airlines that have an AOC, a pedigree and can show a verifiable business plan with repayment options, while initiating a process of regulated consolidation to stem the ugly tide. The loans must be from BASA not World Bank, considering our local airlines were the commercial lambs slain to accrue the funds anyway.

The government should be seen to be providing an enabling environment by putting the necessary infrastructure in place to attract Nigerian pilots, engineers and other professionals to return home and as such strengthen domestic carriers, improve power supply, security and facilitate reduction in corruption and poverty.

NCAT should be upgraded by providing additional training equipment, initiating a process of having simulator machines (cockpit and cabin), which will bolster the status of the institution, generate revenue and attract domestic and international students, who will vie for admission.
There is also a need to have more training schools in the country or invite reputable institutions to set it up, this will bring down the cost of training and stimulate interest from Nigerians. South Africa has over fifteen institutions with a lot of Nigerians students studying there.

The Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) will be able speed up the process of their unending accident reports, if they can have flight/cockpit voice recorder laboratory, refresher courses for Bureau Investigators and an effective support from the search and rescue organisations.

The country has been clamouring for a hangar that will be equipped and certified to maintain aircraft to a level of a ‘C’ check. It can be called any name - national, state, local or private hangar. Our airlines can save costs on flying of aircraft for maintenance outside the country.

Our government should urgently initiate a process of updating our Civil Aviation Act, get our airlines out of the Intensive Care Unit, encourage enplaning, in line with one item on the seven point agenda, mass transportation and most importantly improve safety. Therefore herding students for ab-initio training is not in our best interest.

If the government insists on going ahead with the training, then they should address deficient technical areas and include the clearly deficient managerial hierarchy, because five of our major airlines are headed by expatriates even the most glamorous among them is top heavy with expatriates from failed European airlines.
It should also address the discriminatory pay between Nigeria pilots&engineers and their foreign counterpart which is a threat to industrial harmony.