In addition to several challenges facing the aviation sector ranging from poor infrastructures, price of aviation fuel leading to incessant flight cancellations, glut of personnel, the sector still struggles with poor quality of aviation fuel, also called Jet-A1.
This development has been said to contribute in the frequent damage of aircraft parts, thereby causing operators spend more on repair and maintenance of aircraft more often than required.
John Ojikutu, aviation security expert charged the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to draw up standards for Jet-A1 quality assurance, starting with the transportation vehicles type or profile; supply and trucking systems; storage and dispensing systems.
He stated that at the moment, vehicles supplying aviation fuel, otherwise known as Jet-A1 are not sufficiently distinct from those supplying other petroleum products. Ojikutu disclosed that the consequence of all these development could result in fuel contamination as some of the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) Reports of some aircraft accidents have shown.
In a bid to address this problem, Nogie Meggison, President, Airline Operators of Nigeria, (AON) has called on the Federal Government to repair the Warri refinery to ensure steady supply of aviation fuel.
John Ojikutu, also told BusinessDay that the aviation fuel price is also linked to neglect in repairing the pipelines and failure to revive the Warri refinery’s Jet A1 pipeline –hydrant system for supplying aviation fuel.
BusinessDay checks also show that up till 1992, jet-A1 supply to MMA was through pipelines from Ejigbo or NNPC depot. The supply from the MMA depot to the hydrants on the apron where fuel is dispensed to aircraft, were done also through the pipelines.
However, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the Joint Inspection Group (JIG), and Airlines for America (A4A) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen and promote safety and quality assurance in global aviation fueling activities.
This is aimed at maintaining the quality of aviation fuel, known as Jet A1 that is distributed globally.
“Maintaining the quality of the aviation fuel supply and the supporting infrastructure and operations is vital to the safe and efficient functioning of the air transport industry.
“This MoU, covering all airport fuel storage and handling, puts forward an industry-level program for application of standards and a single global reference for airline inspections. This is a great step forward in further promoting global safety and efficiency,” said Hemant Mistry, IATA’s Director for Global Airport Infrastructure and Fuel.
Through the program IATA, JIG and A4A would seek to encourage the gradual standardization of aviation fuel processes by facilitating compliance with current industry standards and best practices, and by establishing high quality common inspection processes to ensure that the aviation fuel is delivered clean, dry and on-specification. This is expected to facilitate a reduction in the number of required inspections at a given location, while increasing the scope of coverage across the globe and the reduction of cost.
IATA said a key goal for the aviation industry is alignment of standards and best practices across different regions. The three organizations have agreed to work together to eliminate regional variations in this regard.
Allen Onyema, chairman and CEO of Air Peace said if Nigeria is producing aviation fuel locally it will reduce the cost of acquisition of the product.
“If we are producing aviation fuel in Nigeria it will help to conserve our foreign earnings. It will help us to buy this fuel in naira and not in dollars and then change to naira, everything will be fully computed and it is going to be cheaper.
“It is going to also make us reduce the fares we are charging and the availability will even be more, so issues of scarcity will stop. The down time you are going to wait for the product to come from Europe, America or from where ever to Nigeria is a lot but if it is produced in Nigeria, you cut off all those chains and it will impact on our turn around,” Onyema said.
