AVIATION COMMITS: implementation and sustainability are key to delivery

A couple of days ago industry players were gathered at the Oriental hotel Lekki, at the instance of the Honourable Minister Aviation for the public presentation of Aviation Commit Initiative. In his words "It is a compendium of the industry commitments and initiative aimed at repackaging, rebranding and redirecting the industry towards enhanced service delivery and customer satisfaction". In achieving these objectives he directed members of the committees on accident report and aeronautical charges to liaise with the requisite agency heads and institutions for an accelerated implementation of their findings. The minister went further by highlighting some decisions he has consented to before proceeding with the public presentation of the aviation commit manual. The minster in his presentation said he had directed NCAA to publish the list of private operators who should not operate commercial flights, while all commercial flights being flown in the country must have a Nigerian in the cockpit irrespective of aircraft type. He went further by promising to address the issue of foreign registered carriers and the disparity in different charges on fares offered by the local airlines. He also talked about airline recapitalisation and liberalisation subtly tagged African single sky. Most of the issues relating to private jet, foreign registration and Nigerian content are enshrined in our regulations, acts and policies. Why have implementation and enforcement been difficult all these while? Why has the NCAA deliberately looked the other way? What has made the private jet operators so powerful that every minister comes with the same threat and become selective or partisan in implementation? What is new this time are the word "Commit", and a timeline which is not necessary for those who have commercially raped the system. The committee on aeronautical charges was on point on the issue of multiple and overlapping charges which the different agencies must address to improve and attract carriers. The agencies will have some distortions in the anticipated revenue since they have to reduce or eliminate some of the multiple charges while in the same breath commit to a 100% increase in internal revenue generation in a timeframe of less than a year without giving a base figure. The mathematics here is suspicious considering the huge overhead burden inherited by all the agencies and the gross excitement of impressing the minister. Even AIB the investigator is making such commitment. On recapitalisation, I will want to reiterate my humble disagreement on the issue of recapitalisation as a panacea to the problem of our airlines. It will only ensure we once again progress in error and deceit, these airlines in-conjunction with their bankers will prefer to see the airlines limping than being taken to the theatre for surgical operations. We must abort the fanciful flight of recapitalisation and board the fleet consolidation by regulation flight that will move minimum fleet from two to ten. Fleet is a physical asset that can be seen and verified it will sanitise operations while improving safety and profitability. On liberalisation and single African sky, the minister needs to thread softly, slowly and diplomatically. Liberalisation in the skies is a different ball game entirely. It is usually parroted, documented and encouraged but opaque in implementation. The US proponents of open skies have refused to sign with china, while the unions and airlines are asking them to review that of the gulf carriers. The pressure from American carriers has delayed the take off Norwegian low cost carrier from Dublin to New York despite meeting all the regulatory laws and conditions. We signed open skies with the US and had a five year head start which we fritter away till this moment because the decision was hasty with no carrier(s) to capitalise on it. The African single sky being proposed is a baby of Ethiopia airlines (ET) and government and the target is to operate to Europe, Far East and America from Lagos and Abuja. It's a subtle cabotage that we will make us the usual sitting giant. ET claimed the conditions are not ripe to invest in Nigeria but the same conditions have given them the highest frequencies and points into the country. Rather they have chosen to invest and partner other African countries such as Togo, Rwanda, Malawi, Congo and Zambia. In some recent publications in Nigeria, the CEO buttressed his call for single African sky because it has worked well in Europe but deliberately side stepped the ownership structure of those airlines. The caveat in liberalisation is collaboration; those airlines that are benefiting from the single sky policy are not solely owned by a government or person though protected by their respective government. If ET wants a single sky policy ownership structure must be diluted therefore, they should offload a certain percentage to countries that contribute to their total payload rather than grandstand using our politicians and selected media outlets. Nigeria is simply not ready neither do we have an airline that can represent us at the moment, we should tarry a while and learn from previous mistakes. In concluding, the Aviation Commit was a good initiative but implementation and sustenance are the key attributes that may hinder its objectives. I also noticed the chief executives signing the documents gleefully while their subordinates were committed to be sanctioned in the manuals and in some cases not carried along in the new initiative.