The oldest operating airline in Nigeria, Aero Contractors has celebrated its 60th year anniversary as it commended the federal government for its timely intervention through the Assets Management of Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) and resilience of its staff.
Speaking on the occasion to mark the 60th anniversary of the airline at its headquarters at Lagos airport, he said the new management took series of hard decisions to return Aero to profitability, adding that such was without the cooperation of the staff who stood their ground that the airline will be lifted back.
He said the airline services has since December 2016 returned to full operations and grown its fixed wing operational aircraft from one to four with expectation to grow its fixed wing aircraft to six by the close of 2019.
“The present count of four aircraft improved our domestic flight operations to 32 daily. From one helicopter in 2017 we now have five operational helicopters with capacity to further grow this number to 10 helicopters by the close of the year so as to deepen our services.
“In all, we began our repositioning journey growing our domestic operations from eight to 32 daily flights, from ferrying 8,000 passengers per month, to 52,000 passengers per month into and out of the several airports in our route,” Sanusi said.
He said Aero has successfully conducted three C-checks on 737 CL Boeing aircraft, relying wholly on its indigenous engineers with technical support from Messrs AJW/SAA Technics as its technical partners.
He disclosed that following its emerging leadership in aircraft maintenance, countries such as Ghana and the Democratic Republic of Congo have made Nigeria its destination of choice for comprehensive aircraft maintenance.
He added that the airline is in talks with Mali and Cameron to help them carry out their aircraft maintenance.
“From February 2013 to August 2016, Aero faced hard times due to a combination of endogenous and exogenous factors, Aero was under-performing and almost insolvent, it was navigating from one crisis to another which threatened its very existence.
“By this time however, Aero had become a national brand offering skilled employment to Nigerian aviation professionals and contributing to deepening the sector. These factors in addition to Hadi Sirika, a pragmatic Minister of Aviation, riding on the commitment of Federal government to support indigenous companies, rescued Aero from total collapse by stepping in through AMCON to reposition Aero on the path of financial solvency.
“It was in this period I was appointed as CEO with the responsibility of recalibrating the technical and operational capacities of Aero. Our individual and collective responsibilities and experience have not been a Tea Party, they have been marked by series of hard choices we both had to taker ranging from surmounting operational challenges t managing employee matters to debt recoveries,” Sanusi said.
