The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Technology, Festus Keyamo has assured that the Ministry is going to enhance and ensure strict compliance with safety standards.

Speaking at the recently concluded League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents, LAAC, 28th Annual Conference in Lagos, Keyamo stated that safety is number one in the industry.

The Minister craved for support for its five-pointer agenda, saying the Ministry is going to expand it to six-pointer agenda or seven-pointer agenda.

He said the next step in this regard is to improve the airport infrastructure both the aeronautical infrastructure and the non-aeronautical infrastructure and then move to support the local operators.

Keyamo stated that support for the nation’s local operators is very critical.

He said: “Without them, there would be no industry. We put it as one of our very focal points. Support our local operators.
Make sure to enhance their capacities. For so many years we have had a lot of mortality rates, high mortality rates in the aviation industry, in terms of airlines coming and going under. Very high mortality.
I think more than 100 airlines have come and gone under in the last 40, 50 years. In fact, we have had some AOC holders who never came at all. They have AOC, but they never want to come at all.
And so we need to enhance their capacities”.

The Minister pointed out that In the absence of a national carrier, the country should have flag carriers within the aviation industry that will make Nigeria proud.

He emphasized that this will service the country’s reciprocal rights under all the different Bilateral Air Services Agreement, BASAs that she has.

In the words of Keyamo: “We need to enhance capacity in the industry, capacity for development. Train and retrain our technical people within the industry. And ensure that we raise their standards to global standards”.

On the issue of Maintenance Repair and Overhaul, MRO, Keyamo explained that it is at the heart of the improvement of the local aviation industry, stressing that there is
need to bring in the MROs.

He said: “People are already talking with us. I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag. Very soon, we are going to advertise and call for partnership.
That is the only way to go. And I think we need to call in people with money. So, for our local businessmen, our banks, financial institutions, financiers, don’t say that foreigners are coming to take your business away.
It is big business”.

The Minister explained further that to build an MRO, one need a runway to get to an MRO.

“So, it is pretty difficult.
You have to talk with us for us to give you one within one of our international airports. We are in the process of doing a master plan”, he said.

He said the Ministry is going to mark out clear areas for MROs within the international airports.

He observed that there is a shortage of aircraft in Nigeria to service routes.

Keyamo said the local operators are struggling to cover their routes not to talk about the international routes.

According to him: “Air France is coming here ten times a week. We are not going to Paris. Lufthansa is coming here. We are not going to Frankfurt. Delta, United, is coming from America. Nobody is going to America.
Even here, South Africa is coming here. Nobody is going to South Africa. We only managed to get the London route recently for Air Peace. And we are pushing also for them to take us to Heathrow now. We are pushing. We want to make a point to them”.

The Minister said the British Authorities should respect those existing obligations under the BASAs.

According to him, “If we give us you our tier one airport, you should give us your tier one airport too. If not we will divert BA to somewhere.
You can’t tell us it is in the hands of other people, it is your airports before you concession it.
You have the existing obligations before you concession it. Tell those people to respect their obligations.
Without doing that, there can’t be real connectivity. You can’t do real connectivity. But when you get them into Heathrow, people can buy a lot of tickets and then they can co-share. That is the only way you can get our local airlines to co-share with other airlines. So that there can be connectivity and you can go to other parts of the world. Right? So, for them, how can these local people compete? They need access to aircraft. They need the capacity to acquire the aircraft”.

He said the Ministry want to enhance those capacities, adding that he has been talking to the aviation group co-chaired by Boeing and Airbus based in London.

He observed that the the major problem with the Cape Town Convention is that some operators have acted in breach of the Cape Town Convention.

He said: “We detain aircraft here.
We use all kinds of legal gymnastics to detain people’s aircraft and their engines here. And so when they bring them here, we can’t take them out again. I am sure you know some of them that I am talking about”.

He assured that under his watch, local airline operators will not detain anybody’s aircraft.

Keyamo said the Ministry is in the process of drafting rules now, practicing directions to comply fully with the protocols of the Cape Town Convention so that the country can be in tune with global best practices and open the doors for a lot of people to have access, the same access that Emirates, the same access that Qatar, the same access that Ethiopia Airlines have.

On the issue of insurance, the Minister explained that to ensure that the whole issue of insurance must be based in the local market, the ministry bent a bit to ensure that it give lessors the assurance that they can place the risk in the international market and still let them bring their aircraft

According to him: “But the rule of the Nigerian Insurance Commission, NAICOM, now is that every risk must be placed in the local market in order to enhance our local insurance companies. But then, I apologize to say, most of them don’t have the capacity. So when you give them they go and reassure again.
And that is a double amount for them too. And that is what you are seeing in all these airline tickets and all that. The cost is too much. That is what is translated to this high fares, ticket prices we are seeing.
So we apologize to Nigerians, but then we have a lot to do. But we will do it. Tickets will come down”.

He stressed the need for codeshare among the local airlines.

He tasked NCAA to workout a mechanism that will enable the local airlines to codeshare, save cost and give succor to the country’s local passengers.