Aircraft Depletion: Expert calls for Dedicated Forex for Airlines

Samuel Mobolaji

The Chief Executive of Belujane Konsult, Mr. Chris Aligbe has called for a dedicated Foreign Exchange allocation to the airlines not just for anything but for maintenance and for payment of their lease rentals.

This he said would alleviate the carriers’ burden of frantically looking for forex to bring back their aircraft that had been ferried overseas for maintenance; a situation he noted has led to depletion of operating aircraft by the airlines.

Speaking in his office in Lagos Aligbe, expressed sadness that many of the airline operators have had to abandon their airplanes abroad for inability to get the Forex required to bring them back to operation aside the complain of high jet fuel.

He said, “They can buy Forex easily from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to pay for maintenance and then to pay for their lease rentals. With these two, the aircraft will be in there and they will have more aircraft. Many of them, they are out of the way as a result of high cost of maintenance. They cannot pay because they have no access to Forex. Secondly, they are talking about Jet A1.”

“Jet A1 now is available. It’s not that it’s no longer available. It’s available. They are talking of high-cost of A1. But all the airlines, other countries, they still have challenge of A1, but they are operating. So, they cannot push that as an immediate impediment to effective operation. Yes, it is a challenge, but that challenge is not as severe as the non-availability of forex for the airlines. So, this they need to do.”

Beyond these two factor, Aligbe tasked the carriers to look inwardly on other factors that impacted seriously against their business.

He noted that until they realize that they can own an airline and get managers that can manage airlines effectively without getting them hamstrung. They may likely find it difficult to do well with their airlines.

He cited example of the Managing Director of Overland Airways, Capt Edward Boyo who he lauded for his incredible knowledge and prudent management of resources despite being a nitche carrier.

He equally praised Ibom Air for its schedule integrity of over 92%, stressing that they too had had their challenges as well, stressing that the models adopted by many of the carriers are faulty right from day one.

“They just get the aircraft they put on the route. The kind of aircraft they are acquiring is not the type of aircraft they need for many of the routes. It is now that some of them are beginning to look at the right aircraft for some routes. Many of them are beginning to use CRJ and and Embraer. They are good domestic aircraft for domestic operation for some certain routes where you know that almost all the time you have a 100 % load factor.”

“They are beginning to see that. Only a few routes, we have a bigger aircraft like B737 where they are going to have good load factor, least 80 to 90 % load factor. So that is, they are beginning to have the right side of aircraft”.

Aligbe further stated that the country needed an airline of note to service many of the routes that are not reciprocated; a situation he said has brought great economic losses to the country.

“There are not many airlines that go international. There only one airline that goes international for us and I think it only flies to London. They are not operating the other international routes they once operated. We are talking about Dubai, we are about Jeddah, we are talking about the US, and we are talking about South Africa. Are we there? We are not there.”

He noted that at least it would take more than two years for Nigerian carriers designated on the US routes to fly to the destination because of the loss of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) category one aviation status by Nigeria.

While no Nigerian carrier designated on the US route can operate to the country for now because of the category one aviation ranking, the designated Nigerian airlines can operate through a transit point to a country that has US category one ranking.