Nigeria is a country with over 200 Million people whose collective interests are being determined by palpable few of greedy and dangerous cabals always strategizing on new ways to keep stealing from Nigerians.
Aviation sector is another angle where we intend to beam our searchlight this morning.
David Hundeyin in his usual manner offers advice on how to go about it…
“One reason I desire a Peter Obi presidency so much is so that this malaria fever dream called “national carrier” can die its long-overdue death once and for all.
I find the idea economically ruinous to the point of being genuinely offensive. It’s like wanting a return of NITEL.
Nigeria has only 4 viable airports (Lagos, Abuja, PH & Kano). The remaining 19 are subsidy elephants that don’t see enough passengers to pay for their own costs.
READ ALSO : Departing Nigerian President Apparently Created Fake Airline as Final Act in Office.
Arik and Aero, 2 of Nigeria’s 3 largest airlines, are in receivership. The market is anaemic, and growth is dead.
What you SHOULD be doing is drastically reducing ticket costs by slashing airport taxes (currently > ½ of every flight ticket in Nigeria) and allowing modular refineries access to crude, so they can supply cheap Jet-A1 to airline operators in Nigeria.
Currently Nigeria produces no Jet-A1 (kerosene) despite this being the easiest crude oil fraction to crack.
Since CBN can’t meet their dollar demands, Nigerian airlines have to pay for imported Jet-A1 at black market rates, which is why you’re paying 100k to fly from Lagos-Abuja.
Lower ticket prices = increased passenger numbers, which makes up for the lost airport tax revenue using volume.
More passengers flying to and from those 19 ornamental airports will hopefully make some of them more viable and contribute to the local economies around them.
By keeping their costs low, you will have busy airline operators who can offer regular, low-cost flight to our developing market using the Ryanair model. Instead of AMCON liabilities.
You can THEN take 1 or 2 of these airlines and give them flag carrier status.
Rocket science?
Instead, some people want to load a new jumbo white elephant called “Nigeria Air” on a struggling country with a collapsing aviation sector.
Always cart before horse. Kind of like how they went to display a rented aircraft before registering an actual airline.