The president of Aviation Round Safety Initiative, ART, Dr Gbenga Olowo has said that no airline can ever break even in Nigeria with less than 40 percent load factor at the extremely low fares prevalent in the market where passengers pay less than $100 per hour on jet engines.
Speaking in an interview in Lagos, Olowo noted that this is where government intervention in Airline economics is needed in Nigeria by deliberate application of subsidies on fuel, taxes, airport charges, Value Added Tax, 5percent or lower interest rate on loans, quick foreign exchange, FX availability, among others in order to lower Airlines cost of operations.
Olowo stated that face mask, handwashing & sanitization will be a necessary and sufficient condition for travel.
On the proposed re-opening of the country’s airports on June 21 after government shut down of airports for three months to curtail the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, Olowo said three weeks is good enough to do the needful by all stakeholders, stressing that “we never stopped strategizing and talking all through the lockdown. It’s time to walk the talk”.
According to him : “It is expected that All states should open and in deed All countries should open simultaneously because Aviation connects economies.
So while we continue to battle with the virus, our economic life line must not be destroyed. The two are directly related. Just as disease can kill, hunger can also kill and even kill faster.
The airlines have been advancing in technology prior to Covid 19 on social distancing through self service for online ticketing and payments, self service check in, self service security & passport controls,etc. Nigeria Airports should urgently update its system if these are not already in practice.
We still have tonnes of human contacts and check points at our airports which must go. Security information should be shared with immigration for example instead of two different people having to check the passenger passport all the time.
Currency & Agriculture information should also be shared with Security while the harmonised processes are automated.
On board social distancing will be quite challenging except Aircraft will be configured to ALL first class seats for economic operations”.
