In the face of falling oil prices and a devalued currency, the failure of government to build and encourage the establishment of aircraft maintenance hangers is eating into the operational funds of local airlines, as they struggle to survive.
A hangar is an aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul facility.
Analysts formally put the cost of aircraft maintenance abroad for the country’s ten domestic airlines at about N50 billion annually at an exchange rate of about N220 to 1$ and says this amount has increased with the current exchange rate of N282 to $1.
Nogie Meggison, Executive Chairman, Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), told BusinessDay that airlines have lost so much in the past years as a result of repairing and maintaining aircrafts abroad and will lose even more now as a result of the increase in foreign exchange rate.
“Someone will repair the airplanes, fix the tires, wash the airplane and clean the office. It makes the domestic carriers less efficient because the monies that will have been spent here in Nigeria on maintenance and payment of labour are spent abroad,” Meggison said.
The chairman explained that a functioning hanger requires pilots, engineers, caterers and cleaners amongst others, thereby creating both direct and indirect jobs but airlines pay about 150dollars daily for manpower abroad because there are no hangers in Nigeria.
The Nigerian naira adjusted by 29 percent to N282 against the dollar in the interbank foreign exchange (FX) market as the Central bank of Nigeria, (CBN) intervened massively to ease demand for the greenback.
The CBN sold $4.02billion in special secondary market intervention sales (SMIS) and $46.5 million on the interbank market at N281 to N285 to the U.S dollar on the first day of the trading after its currency peg was removed, Thomas Reuters data showed.
The maintenance is referred to in industry parlance as ‘Checks A to D’. ‘A’ and ‘B’ checks are lighter checks, while ‘C’ and ‘D’ checks are complete overhauls.An aircraft is subject to C Check every 15 to 18 months, this is a comprehensive inspection.
Experts say it could cost between $1 million to $2 million to carry out a C-check on an aircraft, depending on the type.
The most detailed inspection is the ‘D’ Check. For the Boeing 737- 300, 737-400 and 737-500, this inspection is conducted after 24,000 flight hours. The Boeing 747-400 requires a ‘D’ Check after 28,000 flight hours, while for Airbus A-330-341, is after six years.
“Only Arik and Aero have maintenance hangars in their bases in Nigeria. That is not to say they are in anyway different from others because Arik Air is in partnership with Lufthansa, where they pay heavily, Aero can’t go beyond C checks, Meggison said.
“Other airlines can only carry out line checks at the airsides, even-though airlines are no longer required to pay duty on imported parts, the manufacturers directives on aircraft maintenance have to be adhered to strictly, because of safety, that is the standard but Nigerian airlines find it very expensive”, he said.
Oluwaseyi Ajayi, senior representative of FlightSource International in Nigeria, a company that specializes in aircraft acquisition and maintenance described the shortage of hangars as a big challenge in Nigeria.
Ajayi said government can encourage the private sector in the form of Public Private Partnership to build hangars, in order to stem the huge capital flight.
Titus Olaniyi, an aircraft maintenance engineer, called for planning and policy framework that would encourage the establishment of hangars in the country, so as to protect the Nigerian aviation industry and its workforce.
Nigeria has ten domestic airlines which provide 6,538 seats to the travelling public daily, some of which include Arik Air, Medview, Aero, First Nation, Discovery Air, Air Peace, Azman Air and Overland.
BusinessDay checks show that all domestic airlines in Nigeria have 71 aircrafts. Arik Air operates a total number of 24 fleets which includes 13 Boeing 737, nine Bombardier and two Airbus aircrafts.Aero operates a total number of 17 fleets, which are 13 Boeing 737 and four De Havilland Dash. Overland has eight fleets, which includes six ATR and two Raytheon Beech.
Dana Airline has a total number of five fleets, which include one Boeing 737 and four McDonnell Douglas MD-83. Medview has in its fleet 5 aircrafts, which includes four Boeings 737 and one Boeing 767. Azman has a total number of three fleets and all are Boeing 737. First nation operates a total of two fleets, all are Air Bus aircrafts.
Aside from Arik, other airlines have to take their aircrafts abroad for repairs and maintenance.
The airlines plight is further compounded by the recent devaluation of the naira which puts them between a rock and a hard place.
Experts say aircrafts have to be serviced abroad because there is no sufficient critical mass to attract manufacturers to set up maintenance facilities in Nigeria
Allen Onyema, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Air Peace, said FAAN is frustrating the efforts made by indigenous operators and other investors to set up aircraft maintenance centres around the airport due to non allocation of land.
“There are many ways government can assist domestic airlines. If government cannot build an aircraft maintenance hangar in Nigeria, it should assist any operator willing to invest in that area by securing a large parcel of land around any airport in the country,” Onyema said
Nick Fadugba, Former Secretary General of African Airlines Association (AFRAA), disclosed that a study on the construction of maintenance hangar facilities has been in the pipeline for close to 10 years but wondered what happened to that study.
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