The absence of small carriers that can airlift passengers from city to city within Nigeria is stunting the growth of air passenger numbers and access to air travel in Nigeria.
Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Owerri, Kano and Enugu are popular destinations for most domestic carriers in Nigeria. These routes are often described as the most lucrative because of their capacity to attract high passenger numbers.
Secondary routes include Akwa Ibom, Asaba, Anambra, Enugu, Calabar, Kano, Ilorin, Sokoto, Akure, Jos, Ibadan, Yola, Kaduna, Katsina and Maiduguri.
These secondary airports are operated by few airlines which fly once, twice or at most three times daily.
Most airlines that fly these routes operate from either Lagos or Abuja into these states, creating a gap in city-to-city travels and making movements merely triangular. It is therefore difficult to get flights from, for example, Dutse to Anambra.
Stakeholders in the aviation industry have explained that if there were operators with small hopper aircraft with 20 to 40 seat capacity, it would be profitable for airlines to operate from state to state and drive hinterland travels.
“I have been advocating for a new class of carriers. It’s not about Air Peace serving every market but new, smaller carriers that open up new markets,” Alex Nwuba, president, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association of Nigeria/former chief executive officer, Associated Airlines, said.
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“New carriers are entering the same golden triangle as opposed to developing new opportunities for new types of carriers created by a proliferation of airports,” Nwuba said.
He observed that since small airplanes consume less fuel, the small operators can charge as low as N50,000 and still be profitable.
He said these small carriers can grow the annual passenger traffic and be sustainable.
“I referred to a more profitable Aero and a strategic Overland of once upon a time. But even then, the airlines I speak of were even much smaller, growing airports, communities, and opportunities as well as cargo, but this is only possible with strategic leadership from the ministry and the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, (NCAA),” Nwuba said.
Nigeria’s state governments have continued to build airports with little passenger traffic across the country.
The viability of these multi-billion-naira projects remains questionable, considering the low level of passenger and aircraft traffic originating and terminating from them.
A breakdown of state airport expenditures shows that Bayelsa State spent N60 billion to build the airport, while Akwa Ibom spent N20 billion. Delta and Jigawa spent N17 billion each, with Bauchi pumping N15 billion into an airport project.
Kebbi, on its part, spent N15 billion on an airport. Other states are: Ogun (N20 billion), Ekiti, (N20 billion), Abia (N40, billion) Kebbi State (N15 billion), Nasarawa State (N40 billion), Osun (N40 billion) and Zamfara (N62.8 billion) billion.
Anambra State cargo airport in South-East Nigeria cost N10 billion, while Bayelsa International Airport gulped N60 billion.
Out of the over 16 million travellers that were airlifted into and out of the country in 2022, Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Port Harcourt and Enugu were responsible for carrying 89.7 percent, while 27 others airlifted just 10.3 percent of passengers within the period.
In 2023, the NCAA announced that airlines would be required to have a minimum of six airplanes before commencing scheduled flight operations.
Experts say if the NCAA regulations can encourage small operators with small fleet size to break into the market, then these airports being built will have more aircraft operating in and out of them.
In 2023, Aviation Round Table Initiative, a think-tank aviation group wrote to the NCAA reiterating the urgency to review PART 9 of the Air Operator Certification and Administration bordering on the Issuance of Denial of Air Operator Certificate (AOC), whereby another layer of scheduled operator licensing be urgently initiated for operators whose total fleet seat in a whole should not be more than 100.
The group stated that on exceeding the 100 seats for an operators’ entire fleet, such operator must apply for the relevant category of AOC, which will go through all the necessary certification processes as may be applicable.
“We believe this approach will encourage and stimulate the growth of new entrant low cost carriers who will be granted fee exemptions and tax holidays for a five-year period,” the group said.
The group likened this to the US part 135 for commuter and on Demand Operations Vis-à-vis part 121 Operations.
BusinessDay’s checks show that the 14 CFR Part 135 of the Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) in the US allows for unlimited scheduled operations, as well as on-demand operations. It also stated that there can be limited scheduled operations, and can be conducted in airplanes with 30 seats or less, or in any rotorcraft.
Olumide Ohunayo, industry analyst and director of research, Zenith Travels, told BusinessDay that the NCAA’s ‘stringent’ conditions, which include size of fleet and age of aircraft, have kept prospective small operators out of the market.
“Most of these smaller aircraft for this kind of operations do not come as brand new anymore. They are being refit, maintained and modernised enough to operate.
“For instance, as Australia was bringing in narrow jets for their local flights, they were blending it with the Fokker 100, 70 aircraft. These are small old aircraft used to feed locations within the country that have low passenger traffic,” Ohunayo said.
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