Nigerian pilots operating in the country may loss more job opportunities in future over inability to be type rated on newer aircraft, BusinessDay’s findings show.
This observation is coming at a time when airlines are ordering newer aircraft which may arrive the country in a year or two years.
Documents obtained from the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, (NCAA), put the total number of licenced pilots in Nigeria as 2,260. Nigerian pilots are 1,739 and foreign pilots are 521.
Stakeholders in the industry say airlines can afford to have much higher number of Nigerian pilots practicing if they were type rated on all the aircraft operating in Nigeria and this may be a challenge in future as airlines are ordering for other aircraft types that are currently in use in the country.
Nigerian carrier, Air Peace has placed an order for 10 Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft, Dana Air has plans to bring in a relatively newer aircraft this year and more airlines are in talks with NCAA to commence operations in the country.
Chris Iwarah, Corporate Communications Manager, Air Peace Limited told BusinessDay that AirPeace has employed 141 foreign and Nigerian pilots since 2016, with most of them being Nigerian pilots.
“Initially we had about two foreign pilots until we brought in four Boeing 777 aircraft. We had to bring in foreign pilots because we did not have Nigerian pilots who are Boeing 777 type-rated.
“Aside from the arrangement to bring in 10 737 Max airplanes, since 2016, we have had a total of 17 aircraft since 2016. The more the aircraft we bring in, the more the pilots we employ,” Iwarah disclosed.
“It is not possible for you to have simulators to provide training for all types of aircraft. Simulators are very expensive and you need to operate them for almost 24 hours for you to recover your investment.
“So, if you have somebody who has 10 aircraft of a type, he doesn’t make any sense for you to install a simulator for training. There is no way you can recover your investments. That is why operators go for training providers all over the world. That is the most cost effective way of doing it,” Muhammed Abdulsalam, rector of Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) Zaria told BusinessDay
On the use of expatriate pilots, Abdulsalam explained that the government has said it several times that as long as a qualified Nigerian is on ground, it would not approve a foreigner to do the job in Nigeria.
“For instance, if an airline introduces new equipment, there may not be local pilots to operate that equipment and as a stop gap, you have to bring in qualified people anywhere you can get them to come and start utilizing the aircraft.
“For instance, Air Peace bought a number of Embraer 45 and before then, very few Embraer 45 were flying in Nigeria, which means that very few Nigerians had that type-rating. A number of that aircraft were parked because we had no pilots,” he disclosed.
IFEOMA OKEKE
