- Wants intervention on multiple charges
Sade Williams/Business a.m.
Obiora Okonkwo, the founder of United Nigeria Airlines (UNA), says the foreign exchange (forex) policy of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is commendable, noting it has been of tremendous advantage and relief to the aviation industry.
But Obiora, a retired professor, said the sector is still buffeted by multiple charges by government agencies in the sector, which remain domestic operators’ nightmare, calling on the federal government to urgently address the challenge.
He also said that the domestication of the Cape Town Convention helped reduce cost of operations in the industry.
Speaking at an event to mark the 4th anniversary of the airline in Abuja recently, the UNA founder said: “I think that the foreign [exchange] policy of the Tinubu administration has been of tremendous advantage to the airline industry. Before he came into power, it was a nightmare for us to be able to convert naira to foreign currencies to pay our obligations. We lost a whole lot of contracts. We lost a lot of vendors. Because you have your money stuck in naira in the bank, and you don’t get the forex that you need. You can’t even go and help yourself somewhere. So, it’s a different story. You don’t need to track funds like I mentioned for the foreign operators, the government has cleared that, almost a billion US dollars,” he explained.
“It has opened up a new window for better relationships. Our reputation and integrity in the international aviation industry is better now. So we are happy with it,” Obiora further said.
He, however, disclosed that the biggest challenge for domestic operators are passengers, noting: “The passengers whom we strive day and night to service and please are the same people who will turn around and become unruly for no just reason. They overemphasised the issues of delays. Delays happen in any part of the world but we need to work together with the press to educate the travelling public about their rights and obligations. We know what we owe them as operators.
“We overbend ourselves as operators to please them. We often do beyond what local flight operators do in any part of the world to satisfy our passengers but despite all that their attitudes and behaviours put a lot of stress on the operators. Sometimes passengers are beaten up and equipment is destroyed at the airports.
“Those policies that I had mentioned, the forex policy, the policy of domesticating Cape Town Convention, and then the new practice direction, all those things actually had helped to reduce so many of the burden domestic operators hitherto grappled with,” Obiora reiterated.
He also restated his call on the government to create a window for airlines to access funds at a reduced rate and the need to reduce multiple charges, explaining that “one thing that will help the growth of this industry will be for the government to develop the programme that will give the window access to local operators to a single-digit loan.
“They need to cut down on the charges the operators pay different agencies of government; in all they are about twenty. The margin of this business is very low and if you have to meet all those charges to NCAA, NAMA, FAAN, you are left with nothing. It’s affecting us, we need to have more money to be able to develop, expand and then also improve the working environment for our staff,” said Obiora.
He added that “[the] government must realize that access to credit is very important to us operators because we are competing with people who have access to loans at 3, 5 percent maximum, and aviation is a global village and we can’t compete with them.”
Also speaking, Osita Okonkwo, executive director and chief operating officer of the UNA, said the airline had opened more routes across the country stating that it has added Benin, Kano and Sokoto to its routes.
According to him, UNA recently renewed its certificate while plans are at an advanced stage for commencement of its regional and international operations.
The ED said its engineers achieved a feat never witnessed in the industry by changing its aircraft landing and nose gears without any foreign assistance stating that its fleet expansion drive has yielded acquisition of some new planes while the airline plans to operate to 25 destinations by 2026.
