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By Chinelo Obogo
United Nigeria Airline has received a certificate of membership from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), commending the airline for efficiency and ‘showing promise’.
At the airline’s Lagos office where IATA’s Area Manager, West and Central Africa, Dr. Samson Fatokun presented the IATA certificate of membership to the chairman of the airline, Prof. Obiora Okonkwo and the Chief Operating Officer, Mazi Osita Okonkwo, Fatokun said it is commendable that the airline was able to achieve the feat of becoming an IATA member within the shortest possible time.
“We are very impressed with the feat that United Nigeria Airlines has achieved especially as it has worked hard to expand and has shown a lot of promise. We at IATA will give United all the support it needs to grow further because we are very proud of what they have been able to achieve,” he said.
Fatokun also called for urgent assistance for the country’s aviation, stressing that the entire aviation value needs help to stay afloat and be profitable.
He said the aviation industry in Nigeria needs help, noting that the Nigerian government needs to provide that help. He stated that the dollar is the language of global aviation and that a situation where local carriers find it extremely difficult to access forex for their operations puts enormous constraints on their existence.
He disclosed that IATA had been appealing to the Federal Government to come to the rescue of the carriers, adding that the issues associated with foreign exchange is not peculiar to international carriers but even to domestic carriers.
Reacting to the emergence of the airline as an IATA member, Okonkwo said that they are focused on expansion and will not relent on delivery of efficient services. He said in a short time, they will commence their regional and international operations, which would further entrench the airline as a major player in international aviation.
Also speaking on the new six-aircraft policy by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), he said it is a way of dabbling into the business model of airlines and one that is not healthy to grow the sector.
He noted that the business model of airlines should be their prerogative rather than that of the regulatory authority, stressing that the reason of flight delays and cancellations canvassed by the agency for its new position that new entrants and existing ones would henceforth have six airplanes does not hold water.
He said, “You may be surprised to know that there are Air Operator Certificate (AOC) owners in this country who are members of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) and they have only one helicopter servicing oil industry, and they’re happy with the need that it what was needed to be able to operate its business model. When you go to other parts of the world, there are people that have just two airports service.”
He also decried the challenges local airlines face, saying that bottlenecks experienced as a result of inadequate infrastructure, bad weather in most cases, and the prevalence of unexpected VIP movements have forced local operators into a very difficult situation and made them not have value for their airplanes which cost so much just as many of the airplanes are on lease rentals.
He said that the operators are still making sacrifices to ensure that they continue to put their aircraft in the sky because of the astronomic increase in the price of jet fuel which has risen to almost N1000 per litre.
Obiorah expressed joy over the enormous safety work to become a member of IATA, saying the membership of IATA would afford his airline the opportunity to do more.
