Bankole Bernard is the Group Managing Director (GMD) of Finchglow Holdings, a one-stop travel management company with six subsidiaries in the travel, tour, and aviation industries. In this interview, he discusses projections for 2025 in the Nigerian aviation industry, his assessment of the air cargo business, and how the government can sustain a tourism boost from Detty December.
What is your assessment of activities in the Nigerian aviation industry in 2024?
Year 2024 started off on a very tough note. This is so because the airlines’ trapped funds were still there. Also, inflation went to an all high figure that the cost of tickets became unbearable and airlines started restricting inventories, which created a lot of problems.
But, from the creation of the world, there has always been a problem. So, there will always be problems, but those problems are hidden opportunities. Once you have established those opportunities and you brought them to bear, you can’t go back to where you were before.
I can tell you for a fact that the issue of airline trapped funds can never come up again in this country. That is gone for good. It has now become an eye opener to everyone that we really don’t need to tie our hands and legs and expect the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to provide foreign exchange. Let the market be free for all. Anywhere you can get your money, please go ahead.
In that process, we started experiencing stability. That stability has now brought growth in business for us. The growth in business it brought for us is what is still making us remain in business. It has given us the room to project because we would have been in a dilemma of what 2025 would be.
Exchange rate has become stable to a very large extent. Exchange rate cannot go to N1,900 again, except some people are manipulating it. The only thing that we will experience is that it will continue to drop to take the natural value that it should be. Once there is stability, it means as a business we can plan and that is what has happened to us.
What is your projection for 2025 in the Nigerian aviation industry?
Festus Keyamo, the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, has created some level of awareness; you might say it counts for nothing, but for me, it counts for everything because every day, we are becoming more visible. We are being perceived as one of the active industries in Nigeria.
Our minister has made himself extremely visible. It counts for everything because for whatever it is, somebody is talking about aviation. In statistics, they say bad data is better than no data at all. After some time, the dancing around will begin to yield some results.
Part of the visibility he’s creating for us is what is making some people say they want to look at what is happening in Africa. Whether we like it or not, the Cape Town Convention (CTC) has yielded results and the impact is enormous and you can see this in certain areas. Let’s keep on being hopeful that in no time, we shall get there.
The Detty December celebrations last December, boosted tourism business in Lagos, how can the government sustain this?
Detty December became an eye opener for Nigerians, but a lot of people don’t know that something was responsible for the huge success recorded for the Detty December. Our weak currency was a major factor that created Detty December for us. What it means is that other areas around the world are too expensive to go to, Nigeria became a cheap place for them to come to, which is a blessing in disguise for us.
So, it gave some people the opportunity to even come and visit Nigeria. Some came for the first time and they saw the high security of lives and property in the country. There was no single crime in December; what happened to all the criminals? What this means is that crime is an action that is created and we have the law enforcement that can curtail that as they curtailed any form of crime last December. That speaks volume.
Already, some people have started to sit down, do analysis of the Detty December and see how they can prepare themselves for another December. I can tell you that I am one of them.
What it means is that there is opportunity everywhere. It means that some people have started looking into our tourism, the government can now say ‘let us look for a policy that will suit more people to come in. That is why we say the government is more about regulation. The difference is actually done by the private sector players.
The Detty December has given up to an extent that Nigeria is safe. Anthony Joshua, the British Boxer didn’t want to go back. He enjoyed himself to the point of taking a bath outside. Everywhere was full – churches, cinemas, hotels and others were all full.
What do you say about the air cargo business in Nigeria?
The cargo business in Nigeria to the best of my knowledge is still in disarray and when it is in disarray, the government cannot see the opportunity there to say ‘let us now streamline policies that will safeguard the operation.’
Before now, passenger business was all about paper tickets and we did not have a central house for clearing of all tickets, but today, all that has changed. The International Air Transport Association (IATA), has created a central clearing system for all the international airlines as well as local airlines that want to join. It makes life easier for them because it means that you have to structure your business and it’s not going to be business as usual.
That was exactly what happened to the travel agency business in Nigeria that we started generating data that the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) could work with. So, everything has changed in the passenger sector and it was able to change because people like us made ourselves available. Some of the airlines said they would use us as a pilot and they saw the way things were done. Today, that industry has enjoyed some level of sanity.
The airline business is not an ordinary business. There have always been some vacuums in the sub-sector and there are also value propositions that are needed to be brought up in the cargo business. The responsibility of the government is to formulate policies and to also create the necessary regulations within the industry.
How can the government streamline the cargo export business in Nigeria?
Who are the experts that we have brought to train our people in government and the practitioners on how export business should be done? Though we have the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC), they are the regulator, but even as a regulator, they don’t understand the in-depth of how the business is done.
If anything has to change, they have to see those who are in the business. Packaging has been a major problem in Nigeria. Tell me who has created the awareness on how export should be packaged out of the country? Almost all our states have created their own airports. We might say they don’t know what they are doing, but it’s a major investment and it has major opportunities. The good thing is that all those airports can be converted to cargo airports for moving goods out of the country, but who is paying attention to it? Where are the warehouses at the airport to keep and preserve these goods?
One of the things that I have seen about the Nigerian business is that you try as much as possible to keep the information to yourself because the high and the mighty will take the business away from you, but that is not the truth. The sky is big enough for everybody in the business to fly.
For instance, in our aviation school, Lagos Aviation Academy (LAA), we have had students coming from the United Kingdom (UK), Ghana and Cameroon to our aviation school. Are we saying there are no aviation schools there? No, it’s the way that we have positioned ourselves. We now have about 100 students in our aviation school at any given time. No one can do it alone.
The issue of collaboration and partnership seems to be a mirage for Nigerian airlines, what do you say about creating a clearing house for the indigenous airlines?
Clearing House for airlines is commercial. It is when you are safe that you can start to address commercials. So, it’s step by step. We have created safety, then we will now start to look at commercials. Air Peace has gone to the IATA Clearing House; they have tasted it and see how it is. Maybe in their wisdom, they will be able to enlighten others.
To get access to the clearing house, there are certain things you have to do and some of them involve you having to tie down money because they know Nigeria will default and walk away. So, you have to deposit and if anything goes wrong, they will take your money and use it to settle others. That is the major challenge with our airlines.
The greatest challenge with Nigerian airlines is that there is the cash flow, but that money is not for you. It’s for maintenance of your aircraft and other necessary things.
Being in IATA Clearing House means that you can expand your inventory. Your inventory becomes the reach for everybody even for those outside the country. It means that other people in other regions can have access to you. You can even get forex in that regard.
When you are in the clearing house, you can give somebody in South Africa to sell Lagos-Abuja-Lagos and they will remit to you in dollars, but the initial cost is what is driving away a lot of them.
You can see an opportunity for foreign exchange, expand your inventory, worldwide recognition and opportunities for investors to come into your business. You can also see an opportunity for codeshare and partnership. So, you will sell beyond point-to-point.
Any airline that wants to survive and grow, should not limit itself to point-to-point. The idea of ‘I can do it alone,’ is what is killing most of our local airlines. There is nothing stopping me from selling my tickets beyond point A to Point B.
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