The Nigeria aviation industry which promises better performance in 2019 continues to see landmark achievements in the sector, even in 2018. For a consecutive period of three years, the industry witnessed laudable operations without any major accident that involved loss of lives—zero-crash. This is largely attributed to the regulatory agencies on their significant measures to deepen safety as well as the Accident Investigation Bureau with their issuance of safety recommendations.
“Civil aviation is a critical element in Nigeria’s transportation system and indeed its economy. Nigeria has twenty (20) airports and many regulated airstrips and heliports; 23 active domestic airlines; 554 licensed pilots; 913 licensed engineers and 1700 cabin personnel”, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) said on its website.
The industry has been criticized for its inability to earn fairly large returns, albeit, investigations revealed that the aviation industry in 2017 and 2018 lost more than $2 billion investment from international financiers who wanted a stake in Nigeria’s air transport sector due to the economic downturn.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that air transport contributed 0.11 percent to GDP at 2010 constant basic price in 2018. This amounted to 20.7 per cent increase from 2017 to 2018.
In 2018, the industry reported a total number of 75,463 operated flights plying international and domestic routes. These flights were operational on a total 43airlines—international and domestic.
There are about 9 airlines operating within Nigeria, all of whom operated a total of 59,818 flights and airlifted 10,092,648 passengers across the country in 2018. These airlines are: Aero Contractors, Arik Air, Air Peace, Azman Air, Dana Air, First Nation, Med-View, Overland and Max Air. The remaining 34 airlines on the international routes operated 15,645 flights and flew 4,079,078 passengers during the period under review.
Of the 74 complaints reported against the international airlines, quite a fair resolution of about 49 per cent of these was successfully provided. Domestic airlines on the other hand were able to resolve 72 per cent of the complaints reported.
A total 7,027,768 inbound passengers and 7,143,954 out-bound passengers were recorded collectively in the industry with 61.5 per cent resolution provided to the total complaints. The international airlines recorded a combined 1,994,099 in-bound passengers; 2,084,980 out-bound passengers; 5,395 delays and 41,334 baggage (of the 44,885 baggage delayed/missing) were found. On the other hand, domestic airlines garnered 5,033,669 in-bound passengers; 5,058,974 out-bound passengers; experienced 36,350 delays, and found 164 baggage from a total 173 either delayed or missing.
The combined activities of airlines and their operations in full year 2018 are shown in chart provided in this analysis.
In the period under review, eight domestic airlines and two international airlines ranked top as the airlines with highest flight operations. These 10 top-ranked airlines contributed 82.5 per cent of the total flight operations from January to December in 2018 whereas the remaining 33 airlines contributed a combined 17.5 per cent.
Air Peace topped the list among the 9 airlines with regards to the number of delayed flights in 2018. The airline recorded 14,067 delayed flights representing over 63 per cent of total scheduled flights of 22,055 and 67 outright cancellations. In similar trailing pattern, Arik Air ranked second with 15,205 scheduled flights, 8,073 delayed flights, whereas152 flights were outrightly cancelled.
Next is Dana Air which scheduled 5,944 flights with 3,915 delayed flights and 67 cancelled flights; Azman Air with 4,944 scheduled flights, 3,242 delayed flights representing 65.9 per cent of total flights, and 49 cancelled flights. Aero Contractors operated 4,361 flights with 2,459 delayed and 70 cancellations; Overland, 601 flights with 1,960 delayed and 29 cancellations. Max Air and Medview recorded flights between 2,000 and 3,000 within the same period.
The 9th and 10th airlines from the rank are international airlines. African World—the top rated international airline based on flights operated—generally ranked 9th with 1,655 flights operated while Asky, 2nd rated international airline, ranked the 1oth with 1,226 flights operated from January to December 2018.
Airline patronages increased by 26.28 per cent in 2018 as more travellers opted for air transport between January and December 2018. The figures released by the Consumer Protection Directorate of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority revealed that 14,171,722 air travellers went through Nigeria airports in 2018 as against 11,221,608 recorded in 2017.
No fewer than 734 cases of cancelled flights were recorded from both the international and domestic airlines operating in Nigeria, according to the data released by the Consumer Protection Department of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCCA). Arik Air tops with 152 cancelled flights, next is Air Peace, 137; Aero contractors, 70, and Danar Air with 67 cancelled flights. Other cancelled flights of the listed airlines in the chart are above 21 which represent the average number of cancelled flights.
Ethiopian Air and Max Air demonstrated a significant level of credibility as they both have minimal cancellation of flights representing 0.27 per cent and 0.23 per cent of total scheduled flights respectively.
In January 2019, it was revealed that 134 flights were cancelled by local and international airlines operating in Nigeria and a total number of 1,290,857 passengers were airlifted within and outside the country by local and international airlines respectively across the 30 airports in the country.Within the same period,12 airlines consisting 5 international airlines and 7 domestic airlines recorded 132 flights cancellation comprising 13 international airlines and 121 domestic airline operators.
Still in January 2019, total passengers airlifted amounted to 1,290,857 passengers consisting 392,364 on international airlines and 898,493 on domestic airlines. The industry, however, aims to leverage on its progress to develop the country into a hub in the West African sub-region.
