Nigeria cannot develop skilled manpower, create jobs and benefit from its huge passenger traffic without having a national carrier, which is the fulcrum of aviation development in other parts of the world, writes Chinedu Eze


For the past 25 years, there has not been any privately owned airline in Nigeria that is deemed viable and profitable. Most Nigerian airlines fall on the way side before or after 10 years; yet Nigeria by location, passenger traffic and by human resources deserves the best airlines in Africa, good maintenance facility and highly skilled manpower.

This means that privately owned airlines in Nigeria, which as at today employed over 60 per cent of expatriates to man their technical departments and operate their fleet, cannot provide the gains we are expecting in aviation as a country with about 170 million people. Privately owned airlines cannot develop manpower or create jobs. They cannot establish maintenance facilities or benefit from the air transport market in the country.

When national carriers started going under in Europe and in Africa, various countries began to panel beat their airlines to suit the immediate realities. Many in Europe privatised theirs, giving government little stakes or no stakes at all; but government still recognised them as national or flag carriers and attend to them as national assets by providing them diplomatic protection and using them to symbolise the nation in air travel.

That explains why British Airways is still recognised as the national carrier of UK; though its ownership has changed. It is the same with other European airlines which have now become mega carriers. Some also went under, but more national carriers disappeared in Africa than elsewhere, like Ghana Airways, Air Afrique and Nigeria Airways. But a lesson was learned from Kenya Airways. According to the CEO of African Aviation Services Limited and former Secretary-General of African Airlines Association (AFRAA), Nick Fadubga, Kenya Airways was in a more deplorable state than Nigeria Airways when the later was liquidated and sold and the former was resuscitated. Today it is one of the most viable airlines in Africa.

The CEO of Belujane Konsult, Chris Aligbe, confirmed that those who oppose the establishment of a national or flag carrier do not proffer a better alternative.

“Those who say we don’t want national carrier, what is their option. I always ask them what the alternative is. And they say government should come and help the existing carriers to grow up and take the position of a national carrier. And I say to them, first and foremost, it is about 30 years if not more, since 1983, 84 when the industry was liberalised, how well has the private operator grown? How well have they grown? Research conducted by Captain Mohammed Joji reveals that from 1983 to date 49 airlines have collapsed. That is on the average of one and half per year.

“No Nigerian airline has attained the growth that we can see and say we have a representative airline globally that can compete, that we can point as an airline that is coming from Nigeria. We are more than 170 million people and it is projected by UN that by 2050 we will be 400 million in Nigeria. We have over 200 young trained pilots that have nowhere to go to. They are not counting the engineers; they are not counting other people in other specialized areas, dispatchers and the rest,” Aligbe said.

A national or flag carrier will create the platform for massive development of the aviation industry in Nigeria, from job creation to the running of profitable airlines that will benefit from the growing indigenous market, which today ensures that some foreign carriers that operate into Nigeria record profits.