Big planes are billed to fly Nigeria’s skies again as some domestic carriers make plans to begin long haul flights.
For about three years now all airline operators have opted for smaller planes to reduce maintenance and operational costs as a result of increasing prices of aviation fuel.
Checks by BusinessDay show that airlines had gradually shifted from big aircraft such as Boeing 737, Boeing 727, Boeing 747, MD 83 to smaller and more fuel efficient aircraft like ERJ 145 hopper jets, Embraer 195-E2, BRJ-900, Dash 8-400 for domestic and regional operations. Older and bigger aircraft cost airlines more on maintenance and operations than smaller and younger aircraft types.
But the trend is expected to change soon as domestic airlines plan to deploy bigger and wide body aircraft for long haul flights.
“We made a firm order for 13 Embraer195s, which are bigger than the E145s. We’re also expecting 15 bigger planes which include the Boing 737 Max 8 and 737 Max 10. These planes will support domestic, regional and long haul flights like South Africa, amongst others,” Stanley Olisa, spokesperson of Air Peace told BusinessDay.
Olisa also said that the MAX 10 equipment are primed for the Lagos-London route whenever the airline receives approval to operate the route.
Dapo Majekodunmi, managing director, ValueJet Airline said they may not be getting big planes for the airline’s proposed long haul flights, but codeshare with airlines in Africa that operate long haul flights to operate flights into Europe, Asia, and America.
“Senegal is the closest part of Africa to Brazil and the United States. They have an airline that flies in that direction. I think if we want to go international operations in the region, our operations will be to codeshare with other African airlines to give us better coverage of the world.
“It is not just going to Accra that will be our target; our target will be how to connect our passengers to the rest of the outside world – Europe and America. North Africa flights can be a good codeshare into Europe,”Majekodunmi said.
Ibom Air, a Nigerian Airline owned by Akwa Ibom State government has expressed its readiness to commence regional flight to seven African countries in the next two months.
Annie Essienette, the group manager, marketing and communications of Ibom Air, listed the seven African countries to include Ghana, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Gabon, Liberia, and Gambia.
The airline plans to operate these routes using its small CRJs and A320s, which are bigger than the CRJs.
A320s seats from 140 to 170 passengers and has a maximum capacity to accommodate 180 travellers.
Globally, the world’s biggest passenger airliners—many of which had been earmarked for the scrapyard are being brought back into service as carriers rush to restore long-haul air travel.
Aircraft lessors said airlines are clamouring for their once-parked fleets of big jets, which typically each ferry hundreds of passengers on long-distance routes. The demand is limiting availability and pushing up the prices of rentals.
“There has been a tremendous acceleration in the last eight to 12 months in the wide-body marketplace,” John Plueger, chief executive officer of Air Lease Corp, told Wall Street Journal.
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Boeing and Airbus sales staff are chasing several big orders for new planes from carriers and lessors. Airlines including British Airways—owned by International Consolidated Airlines Group SA—Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Qantas Airways Ltd. are flying their double-decker Airbus A380 jumbo jets again, after mothballing the planes at the height of the pandemic.
“Knowing and working on the existing campaigns with customers around the world, I feel pretty good about the wide-body,” Christian Scherer, Airbus executive said in a briefing.
According to Wall Street Journal, as travel restrictions started to lift, airlines initially sought to bring back only their smaller narrow-body jets. Demand for domestic and short-haul leisure trips, already serviced by smaller planes, started to return before long-haul international flights.
Wide-body flying is still short of a full recovery. The total number of flights operated on twin-aisle jets in January came in at 76 percent of the total flown in the same month in 2020, according to flight-data specialist OAG.
Airbus and Boeing are being cautious about raising the production rates of their biggest planes, even as they chase orders for them.
They are already battling manufacturing pressures on their narrow-body output and are cautious about overwhelming already-stretched production lines. Any global economic softening could test the resilience of the recent surge in passenger numbers.
On January 31, Boeing marked the delivery of its final 747 aircraft after more than five decades of production. The jumbo, which stretches 250 feet, has been an icon of long-haul air travel. The jet’s four engines and size had made it harder for airlines to justify keeping it in their fleets, ultimately relegating new deliveries of the plane to freighter-only variants.
Still, airlines for now are moving quickly to bring bigger planes back into service or fast-track replacements as passengers flock back to airports. The industry is also now betting on pent-up demand for foreign travel from China after that country dropped most pandemic travel restrictions.
