COVID-19 drags NAHCO revenue by 70% in 2020, CEO says

At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, the revenue generation of Nigerian Aviation Handling Company (NAHCO) Plc dropped by 70 per cent, Olatokunbo Fagbemi, the group managing director of the company has disclosed.

This is as Fagbemi emphasised that the entire staff of NAHCO were trained on COVID- 19 protocols, saying that this had made its staff compliant with the protocols as spelt out by the World Health Organisation (WHO), Nigeria Centre of Disease Control (NCDC) and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).

Speaking in an interview at the ground handling company headquarters at the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos, Fagbemi decried that the pandemic caught the company and many other organizations in the industry and Nigeria unawares.

She explained that as at January 2020, NAHCO revenue generation had increased between 20 to 30 percent when compared to the same period in 2019, stressing that the company was already projected for growth until the outbreak of the pandemic.

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Fagbemi further explained that the financial situation of the company improved in the latter part of 2020, but could still not be compared with the pre- COVID- 19 era.

She, however, said that NAHCO management with the support of the board had restructured to absorb future shocks that may arise in the system.

Fagbemi assured that the financial report of NAHCO would be published in the next few weeks.

She said: “2020 was a very challenging and an interesting one for us. As at this time last year, we were projected for growth. If you look at our figures, which are published, at the beginning of the year, I think we had a 20 or 30 per cent growth in January. By the end of the quarter, it dwindled a bit. I think the impact of COVID- 19 started in March 2020. We had our eye in November and December 2019 that something was happening in Asia, but we didn’t imagine that it was going to be what it was.