The President of TopBrass Airlines and a member of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), Roland Iyayi, has lamented that many of the 31 airports and 91 airstrips across the country are not helping the growth of tourism as they lie dormant.
He said the airstrips and airports should be opportunities for the domestic market with smaller airplanes like 19 seater air shuttles to many places with airstrips to boost commerce and tourism.
Speaking to New Telegraph at the Aviation Safety Round Table (ASRT) summit at the weekend, Iyayi said: “You cannot fly a B737 into an airstrip that is 500 metres long.
Our tourism industry is dead. Non-existent. But we do have a lot of tourist sites in the country. Kenya and most East African countries thrive on tourism.
They do not have those numbers to support that industry as well as we do. “Assuming we had aeroplanes structured for 19 seats, 30 seats, that can go into markets where you do not have numbers to support the b737s, the operating economics of such types would make any airline operating in the niche market more viable.”
“But we are not doing that. We are not looking at those little bits. Except, of course, we have a complete ecosystem that will take cognisance of the different segments of our market. It would be almost impossible to thrive in this system”, he added.
The Nigerian aviation industry, he reiterated, had the opportunity for tremendous growth. He, however, regretted that the growth element must be supported deliberately, and intentionally by government policy.
He noted that the policy must be tailored to the needs of the country, hinting that without that, Nigeria would end up a fragmented market with the same airlines coming into the same market with the same size of aircraft.
He complained about what he termed constraining policies, which he said had affected airline operations in the country, advising hat the factors constraining the industry were like shackles that they placed on the carriers.
“Until we remove those shackles, we are not going to grow this industry. FAAN itself can make more money. Today, if FAAN were allowed to commercialise its operation in such a way that it would take cognisance of what it has and can use it well.
If you want to do a low-cost service today, you can go to FAAN. “The MD of FAAN should be able to make the business decisions to decide what is best for FAAN. But unfortunately, because of the structure of our governance and the fact that we embrace mediocrity in Nigeria, unfortunately.
If we do not allow talents to thrive in our airline, we will not do the right things,” he said. Iyayi admitted that the infrastructure gap in the industry was huge, stating that if this government decides to provide on an annual basis $500 million over the next 10 years, it would not address the infrastructure gap.
“That is a reality. The NCAA last year gave the government $500 million as Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). The same NCAA has not been able to train adequately on its personnel. There are a lot of issues, and they are conflicting, they are contradictory.
To address them holistically, there is a need for us to look at everything more like put everything up and then let us put it together again” he said. Describing aviation as an enabler of growth, Iyayi pointed out the act establishing all the agencies, hinting that it talked about cost recovery.
“But the government of today has seen all the agencies as for IGR. We have a situation where FAAN earns all this income. And the government of today says, no, we take 50 per cent, deducted at source. And then we are all sitting here complaining about the toilets not being clean,” added.
