‘Nigeria can be leader in Aviation in Africa’

Kola Olayinka, British Airways (BA) regional commercial Manager, West Africa has said that Nigeria has the capability and resources to lead other countries in Aviation in Africa, if they are well managed.

He also sad if the policies are well targeted, the country could take over from others in terms of growth and development of its aviation sector.

He spoke at the re-launch of the airline’s On Business programme, an initiative designed to offer people an unrivalled service, access as well as great savings to a worldwide network of destinations with rewards and discounts that allow them to properly plan their business travel budget.

He is of the opinion that Nigeria’s strength still lies in its population, adding that once the people are empowered, the country will take back its position.

“When you look at the whole of Africa, Nigeria remains a power house of the continent. Don’t let us focus on what is yet to work perfectly now, but rather our strength and in terms of aviation, what is our strength? It is numbers, if we enable the Small and Medium Enterprises and there are more people flying, it means there would be more customers for us as an airline even for some people who are not here. If we are talking about the assessment, I can tell you a whole lot of things to be improved upon, but I would choose to focus on what’s possible, what’s good and where we are strong now. We have a great number and a great nation. We don’t want to just be a consuming nation, we also want to be a producing nation. Go to every corner of the world, there is a Nigerian and they say one out of four Africans anywhere in the world there is a Nigerian, which has even gone further.

“For instance, I would want to see British Airways flying A380 into Nigeria and why not? We are already flying to South Africa and that country is coming behind us. Why can’t Nigeria be the number one aviation leader in Africa? We have the capability, the people and the economy. It is just for us to pull the resources together. All of us operators, government helping us in terms of policies, I think we would be right there”, he said.

On the re-launch of the programme, Oalyinka said British Airways effort is to focus on some of those companies that are not yet big and hope to be big in the future.

“We are focusing on them because if you are running that company, two things would be important to you; cost and revenue. You want the revenue to go up and the cost to come down. Now, in terms of cost, which is where we come in, we can help them manage their travels in such a way that they save money and earn miles and it can be easier for them so that they can grow quicker and many of them have asked me, ‘what is the catch?’ and I’ve told them there is no catch, but there is one catch and that catch is when you are very big now, don’t forget the airline that stood with you when you were not so big.

“The whole idea is to look out for people. You know an economy runs on so many things and runs on people who can employ. In fact, even privately people like yourself who has a maid at home, you may not know, you are providing a service because you are keeping those people out of trouble and you are paying them some money and they also pay some people or even help their families.

“The same way, if we have a company that employs between five and 25 people, you can imagine how many each of the staff would feed. So, we are helping the economy and creating the future both in travels and economy because the person that is employing 25, if it is well managed and the economy improves, probably by next year, he would employ 30 or more. So, they become bigger and bigger. That’s what all these is all about and BA launched this five years ago not just in Nigeria, but all over the world. Because we want to be a part of what is happening globally, we also decided that we are going to re-launch it here and make sure that our companies benefit from it”, he added.

Olayinka added that this is just a first step as the airline plans to propagate it further even to Abuja in November.

“ It’s an ongoing drive to help what we call Small Medium Enterprises, people who are employing in that range to make sure that they can grow and when they grow, they can fly British Airways.

Sade Williams