Reforms as Elixir for Air Travellers

The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo last week encapsulated the federal government’s plan to put the right structures and policies in place to grow the aviation industry with ultimate aim to boost customer satisfaction, writes Chinedu Eze

There are two key factors that play huge role in air travel. One is the airline and the other is the airport. Other factors fall in-between, include: safety, security, cost of ticket and personnel development.

The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, recently outlined what could be described as the blueprint of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration in the aviation industry.

It could be said tersely that the minister wants to empower the airlines so that they could operate profitably, acquire aircraft at affordable cost with willing lessors who will offer their equipment to them, pay less insurance premium and bring down cost of tickets so that air passengers can pay less to travel.

On the other hand, the administration also wants to have state-of-the-art airports that are passenger friendly, secure with easy facilitation. To do this, the administration is looking at concessioning the airports, following laid down, transparent process and attracting foreign investors, that will create more jobs when passenger movement is boosted.

Consumer Protection Portal

It is this objective that prompted the establishment of consumer protection portal by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).

The establishment marked a significant step towards creating platform for interface between airlines, NCAA and air travellers in accordance with international practices and standards.

The portal offers a comprehensive platform where passengers can lodge complaints, access real-time data on airline performance, and monitor punctuality and on-time operations of airlines.

NCAA said the portal would also serve as a valuable resource for the aviation industry, offering data and tools for research and development, and contributing to informed decision-making that can ultimately improve service delivery.

During the unveiling last week, the minister said that the portal, and all other things the Tinubu administration is doing, were meant to improve the service offered to air travellers and to make air travel easier and more comfortable.

“For us, everything that we do in the aviation sector must finally translate to improved travelling experience for the travelling public. If it does not improve, if it does not translate to that, then we have done nothing. And this is what we have come here today to demonstrate.The travelling public deserve better. They deserve to know how their complaints are being treated. They deserve to know who to complain to.They deserve to know the length of time it will take for their complaints to be addressed. They deserve to know who to hold responsible. And that is what this portal seeks to achieve.

“The portal also puts the regulators under some kind of searchlight too. Because it tells us the length of time it is taking for them to address these complaints. What exactly they have done in addressing these complaints and so on and so forth.So, it is something I sanctioned. When they brought it to me, I said, look, this is a no-brainer. We have to do it. In the last one year in office, we have concentrated on some of these issues. Of course, you know what has been happening in terms of redesigning the policies to redirect the whole direction of the aviation industry as a whole,” Keyamo said.

Policies and PPP

The minister said the easiest way government could develop the aviation industry is to review and also introduce pro investment policies that would attract private investors, eliminate the policies, which are inimical to growth, and promote private enterprise.

In other words, there are hitherto stringent and conservative policies, which are disincentives to investment by the private sector. Such policies that will hinder their ability to make profit, encourage prolonged, boring bureaucracies and such other policies that can erode the confidence of investors in putting their money in the sector should be done away with.  Then opaque actions of government and its agencies should be looked into. The minister believes that when these seeming obstacles are removed, the private sector would be willing to invest in the industry.

It was the Minister’s efforts to achieve these set goals that gave Nigeria high approval rating, as Aviation Working Group (AWG), recently scored Nigeria high and commended the Minister of Aviation because of what he had done in the last one year he was appointed Minister of Aviation.

Speaking on the rating, the minister said: “In the last few months, I kept informing the public that I was working on this.And I was working on this very seriously. What government can do is to open up the environment for private businesses to thrive. Government does not even need to give money.What kind of money do you want to give to the aviation industry? It is so capital intensive. There is no amount of money government gives to the industry that can make them survive. It is actually the kind of policies to attract foreign investors, to attract patronage, to make this environment especially safe and conducive for people to come in with their equipment, their aircraft, their engines, their parts, for the local operators to survive.”

Keyamo said the lofty plan to make the aviation sector more conducive for private investment, spurred him to do more, noting that the previous administration had more buoyancy and greater possibilities but they chose to do nothing. His administration, he emphasised, would be to ensure that the right sacrifices were made to drive the vehicle of development up the hill then to the level ground, adding that there is need for concerted efforts and support from stakeholders.

“Look, it would have been easy for us, like some previous people did, to throw up their hands and say, look, it is not working. Some other people have more capacity than us.And then they go outside the country to invite foreign capacities to kill our local capacity. So I am very clear as to our direction in the aviation industry. And Mr. President mandated that we should go that way. I want to thank Mr. President for giving us all the support. Now, I am sure you see the clear difference in policies. One says no, we cannot do it. And so they go and attract people from outside to come and dominate our space. But I am saying no to it because we can do it. Let us see how those people did it and create the same kind of environment for our own people to achieve what others, who are not in any way better than us, achieved,” he explained.

Development Objectives

It is these objectives that informed the Tinubu administration’s clear policy shift, leading to a long-term plan to rejuvenate the aviation industry and make it conducive for private sector participation. Keyamo noted that policies that promote short term development cannot go the whole hog and may retard long-term growth. “This means regular disruptions and hiccups that could encourage self-serving actions at the detriment of the overall interest of the sector.

“Let us go and bring people, and then you will see some seeming change in the first three, four months and at the end of the day, you kill the entire local business. So it is better to take the hard road and to get to glory land at the end of the day. What we have done is to take the hard road. And what is the hard road? We decided to go around the world to say, look, what do you want us to do to be like Qatar? To be like Addis Ababa? What do you want us to do? And they gave us conditions. Now we have the country already, and we have the economy, and we also have the population. We have the traveling public. So why can’t we be like them? It is very simple,” Keyamo said.

According to him, they gave us these conditions and we have started to address these conditions one by one. Other people ignored these conditions.I saw letters of 10 years ago, five years ago. They wrote to Nigeria to say, you are not fulfilling this. And they ignored those letters. I went back to those letters. And this is the first step (the rating). There are other steps coming.There is still some way to go. But what we did, we actually drew from our wealth of professional background. We did the Cape Town Convention. We did the practice direction. The world applauded. They are applauding. They are rating us high. We will continue to do this to ensure that this place, this country becomes like every other country in the world that enjoys the patronage of the big resources and financiers across the world. And that is the path we have taken, Keyamo further said.

Airport Development

According to Keyamo, the federal government has the plan to build aerotropolis at the airports and establish hubs but this can only be done when private investors see attraction in what government can offer, which is reliability, policy consistency and other incentives, including transparency in the processes.

“We are saying that we are going to build aerotropolis. We are going to make them proper hubs. However, we cannot do so without private investment. And so we are going out to attract more investors, and we are advertising very soon for concessions. However, we want to carry the unions along. This is my major focus in this drive. I don’t want to do it like previous ones, that there were complaints, either from within or outside. There was resistance by the unions. Resistance from other people, and resistance from even the co-bidders, that the processes were not transparent enough. The first thing about the safety of jobs of those in the union, and one of the first conditions we will give whoever wants to do concessions with us, is that they must carry our liabilities along – the workers. Make sure their jobs are safe, then we can start talking. If the workers are not safe, we can’t start talking. It is as simple as that,” the minister said.

The Director of Operations, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Captain Abdullahi Mamoud, explained that the minister had directed a review of the airport master plan in preparation to the transformation of the airports.

“There is a master plan, the airport master plan, which they are seriously working on. The minister wants to see this master plan so that we can sit down and drive it together. By the time we start driving it and effecting it, I think all these issues will be sorted out. And then another option is that we are trying to leverage some of our airports that have been underutilised to see how we can give airlines some incentives so that at least we can pull out some of the airlines to those airports, which are currently heavily underutilized. So these are some of the options that we are looking at. If you can offer incentives to airlines that fly to certain locations, it will go a long way in encouraging the airlines to utilise those airports, so that pressure can be reduced in some of the major airports,” Mamoud said.

Therefore having the right airport infrastructure as well as viable and profitable airlines, it will significantly improve the aviation industry, which will then increase its contribution to nation’s GDP, create more jobs and also provide robust services to air travellers.