NAHCO expends $50m on ground support equipment

The Nigerian Aviation Handling Company (NAHCOaviance) management says it has spent well over $50 million on group handling equipment just as it now controls 85 percent of the market in ground handling operations in Nigeria.

Kayode Oluwasegun-Ojo, managing director of the company, in an interview with BusinessDay said part of the amount was also spent on modernisation of the company’s ultra-modern Customs bonded warehouse which had in recent times impacted progressively on the operations of the company.

The NAHCOaviance boss, who disclosed that the organisation after 35 years of successfully operating, now holds 85 percent of the market, also said the company had between 2011 and 2013, spent N600 million on training and other regulatory matters.

“The training has enabled us to retain international knowledge, we take training and retraining seriously because it has a lot of impact on the company and staff, we are also planning to diversify into related business and expand into African, especially, West-African countries,” he said.

Oluwasegun-Ojo, who said NAHCOaviance had retained its leadership position in the market through ‘competence and integrity,’ noted that “it had always followed high standards of corporate governance” in doing business.

“As par our shareholders, they have a reason to repose confidence in us because we have never declared loss,” he added.

He however disclosed that power and infrastructure had been a major challenge confronting the company, adding however that if the Federal government could continue with infrastructural renewal currently going on at many airports, “it would significantly help the industry to grow.

“With the progress of infrastructural renewal being made, we have experienced significant improvements at Kano and Enugu international airports and that has helped our business but sometimes when work is in progress, the conveyor belt for instance, can stop because of power outage, government could consider the option of independent power supply to airports to aid organisations’ businesses,” he added.

Meanwhile, Oluwasegun-Ojo, during the week, personally offered service as the ‘number one passenger service’ staff of the company.

The event, which was part of the activities marking the company’s 35th year anniversary, saw Oluwasegun-Ojo personally handle the check-in formalities of Michael Olusesi, a London-bound Virgin Atlantic passenger.

The exemplary display was memorable, especially coming from such an unexpected quarter.

The NAHCO boss, who later explained that unknown to him the passenger was a professional accountant emphasised that that in itself was significant since it showed that what an ‘able person’ can achieve, a so-called disabled can also achieve.

“We need to show concern to passenger A as we will do to passenger B,” he said, adding that there was need to engage in this kind of experience often as the perception a customer has after being served stays with him for a long time.

Sade Williams