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Misplaced Priority, Bane Of Local Carriers – Sirika

Sen. Hadi Sirika, the Minister of State for Aviation has identified misplaced priorities among nation’s airlines as one of the major challenges confronting their growth.
Speaking recently with journalists at the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos, Sirika said that most of the local carriers want to go into schedule operations when there are arrays of openings in the airline sub-sector.
For instance, he said Aero Contractors Airline, which commenced as an oil and gas operator suddenly delved into schedule operations without changing its business model and priorities, stressing that same challenge confront other local carriers.
He insisted that without a change of business model and priority, Nigerian airlines would continue to run into murky waters and challenged the operators to re-organise, re-engineer and be futuristic in their business model.
He said: “Let’s take the example of Aero Contractors; the airline has been in existence for 57 years. I was born to stand up and see the name Aero Contractors. It outdates me as a Minister of Aviation and they were getting it right for about 40 years or more.
“Then, they suddenly changed their business model; they used to serve the oil and gas through charters and contracts, but they changed the business model by doing passenger schedule flights without changing the business model to reflect their changes. What happened? They ran into trouble, the legacy family of course did what they did and the airline went aground.
“I think it is getting their priority right and doing the business model that will bring money for them (local operators). Everybody wants to operate schedule flights. Before i became a public officer, i was a businessman, i was not running an airline that was carrying passengers, but i was in aviation and i was making money, far more money than the schedule operators.”
On the condemnation that trailed the recently implementation of Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) by the Nigerian Government and 22 other African nations, Sirika insisted that the step taken by the government was in order.
He declared that the nation’s airlines were in the forefront of the campaign to implement the Yamoussoukro Decision (YD) at the time when they felt vantage, but regretted that today; the same airlines were condemning its implementation simply because they were not in a position to compete.
“Today, they are signing another song. These carriers owe all over the place. There is no agency in the industry that is financially healthy. The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to my knowledge is conducting audits of the airlines in the country and i am sure the result is not something they will want to go to the press with.

“The local airlines refused to grow and the challenge is not government caused, it is by their own marking. Very soon, there will be stakeholders meeting where the airlines themselves will be present and then, we will dialogue on the situation they found themselves.”
https://independent-ng.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/independent.ng/misplaced-priority-bane-local-carriers-sirika/?amp_markup=1


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