The Chief Operating Officer (COO), Ibom Air, Mr George Uriesi, has said that domestic airlines lose at least N4.3 billion annually due to their inability to operate 24 hours flights daily to the airports of their choice.
He made this known while speaking at the 26th Annual Conference of the League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC) in Lagos, with the theme “Sunset Airports: Economic and Safety Implications.”
Uriesi said that such restriction had led to a huge underutilisation of aircraft fleets by Nigerian airlines.
In his paper, ‘Maximising Runway Utilisation: A Nigerian Airline Perspective,’ Uriesi said the country’s carriers were losing an average of N4 million per flight, N360 million in 90 flights and about N4.3 billion annually to sunset airport operations.
He said this was partly because too many impediments were present in the operating environment that limits airline productivity.
“These include limited runway availability across the domestic network, multiple operational infrastructure deficiencies, poor organisation and many others.”
In a bid to solve the challenge, Uriesi appealed to the government to prioritise airfield infrastructure and provide the necessary Instrument Landing System (ILS).
He further called for accompanying accessories for every airport, and keeping of the aerodromes open to meet the needs of airlines and other users and advised that the government should make current, approved master plans a regulatory requirement for every airport and illegalise non-adherence to the master plans by any organisation.
Meanwhile, the Director, Centre for International Advanced and Professional Studies (CIAPS), Prof. Anthony Kila, has urged the federal government to establish a Bank of Aviation.
The bank, he said, was necessary to make airlines have easier access to foreign exchange.
In his presentation, “Passenger Experience In Daylight Airports,” said that with the present situation, it was not enough to have aviation funds from government or aviation desks in commercial banks anymore.
He said it was time to think of “activating an aviation bank that will raise and manage funds and offer niche financial products for the aviation industry”.
Kila also noted that NCAA, asides enhancing safety in the industry, should, for the sake of consumers and citizens, work as a clearing house for delayed or stranded passengers.
He said that they should ensure that stranded passengers of delayed and cancelled flights could fly with the next available flights.
According to him, this is just as debit and credit card holders issued by one bank can easily withdraw money from the Automated Teller Machine (ATM) of any available bank.
