Chinedu Eze
New Nigerian Carrier, the United Nigeria Airlines has completed plan to build Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility in Enugu.
The aim is to slash the cost of maintenance by about 40 per cent.
This was disclosed by the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the company, Obiora Okonkwo, when he led the management team of the airline to an interactive session with journalists in Lagos, on Wednesday.
When completed the facility would serve airlines in West and Central Africa and would save a projected $500 million for Nigerian airlines, which is the cost of ferrying aircraft overseas, payment for allowances for flight crew and rented space for aircraft, as maintenance schedule could delay aircraft due for checks for months.
‘Airlines should interline, codeshare to survive’
The foreign exchange (FX) liquidity crisis is eating deeper into the daily operations of the local airlines, causing airlines’ capacity to dwindle and hitting up airfares. x
The Guardian, yesterday, learned that operators in the aviation sector have not received FX requests from the Central Bank since February, which explains why multiple airplanes are stuck in maintenance facilities overseas, and a lot more unserviceable and on the ground at airports.
The chairman of United Nigeria Airlines, Obiora Okonkwo, who confirmed the dire straits, said local carriers might have to consider interlining or a codeshare arrangement to cut down the cost of operation and enhance survival chances.
Press focuses on vaccination of over 1m people in Nigeria, others Nigeria-Press-Review April 16, 2021 to 09:47 205 APA – Lagos (Nigeria) The report by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) that Nigeria has so far vaccinated over a million eligible people out of its target of 70 percent of the nation’s population is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Friday.
The Guardian reports that the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) has announced that Nigeria had so far vaccinated over a million eligible people out of its target of 70 percent of the nation’s population.
The NPHCDA disclosed this on its official Twitter handle, on Thursday.
Industry sources said the sustained increase in the price of aviation fuel was worsened by the high exchange rate. As of yesterday, the dollar was exchanged for between N490 and N495 in the parallel market.
Some operators link the price hike to the significant rise in airfares with a one-way Lagos-Abuja ticket reaching N120,000 last week.
There are even fears of fuel contamination in some quarters which experts say could threaten flight safety.
Engr. Femi Adeniji of Tropical Arctic Logistics, a helicopter operator who confirmed the current price said any jet fuel cheaper than N270 could have been contaminated.
Operators, however, said only local refining could arrest the consistent increase in the price of jet fuel.
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The chairman of a new entrant airline, United Nigeria Airlines, Chief Obiora Okonkwo has identified scarcity of foreign exchange as one of the challenges Nigerian airlines are faced with.
Addressing aviation journalists at the Lagos airport, Okonkwo lamented how two weeks ago, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) did not approve the application for US dollars to airlines because of the scarcity of forex.
He said, “As at two weeks, CBN had not given dollars to airlines since February 2021 owing to scarcity of foreign currency. Aircraft business is very capital intensive. The solution to the survival of airlines is access to spare parts. Aircraft spare parts are not sold here in Nigeria, they are sold overseas. The aviation industry should be given all the necessary support to ensure the survival of airlines”.