| Foreign lessors now have confidence
doing business with Nigeria – Dr Harold Demuren, DG,
NCAA
By UCHE USIM
Monday, July 30, 2007
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•Demuren
Photo: Sun News Publishing |
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After the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) got its
long-desired autonomy and subsequently scaled through International
Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) safety audit last year,
the Director-General of the authority, Dr Harold Demuren,
urged his staff not to rest on their oars as the tasks ahead
were enormous.
Part of the hurdle was to ensure that the NCAA attains Category
1 status, which enables local carriers to operate in international
routes, especially in the United States (US) without hassles.
Another challenge was ensuring that Nigerian carriers should
enjoy international aircraft financing loans from developed
nations and where necessary lease airplanes outrightly without
being branded operators from a nation with high political
risks.
Since the domestication of the Cape Town Convention was part
of the rituals needed to realize that, the restless man fought
to fulfill that mandate.
Bold and blunt, the NCAA boss in his safety crusade had whipped
airlines into line, warning his officers never to compromise
on safety as the consequences will be unpalatable.
Just a few days ago, a four-man aviation experts from the
US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) concluded the preliminary
audit of the NCAA and one of the airlines designated on the
Lagos-US route to ascertain their readiness to attain the
Cat 1 certification. Though the report of the audit is being
awaited, Demuren expressed confidence that the authority will
come out tops.
In this interview with Daily Sun, the NCAA
DG gives details of what the US-FAA audit is all about, the
Cape Town Convention and its benefits, his challenges, among
others. Excerpt:
What the US-FAA audit is about
It’s a very important audit for the Nigerian Civil Aviation
Authority (NCAA) to attain the Category 1 status. The US experts
are here to look at our guidelines, policies and procedures.
They’ll look at how we ensure safety, issuance of safety
certificates, licensing procedures and all that, just to ensure
that we’re following international standards before
doing our job.
They’re also looking at our enforcement and sanctions
to see what we’ve done and what we’re doing in
that regard. They want to know the punishment for various
degrees of offence. They want to know if appropriate actions
are applied to deter people from committing same offence.
They also want to know what lessons we’ve learnt from
accidents and measures put in place to prevent a reoccurrence.
In a nutshell, they want to know how the safety oversight
of the NCAA is done.
They’re here for the preliminary one after which they’ll
come up with a full-blown one.
The auditors’ reaction
They were shocked at the size of the Nigeria’s aviation
operation. They now know that we have 21 airports and so many
airlines. They compared with other countries in Africa with
most of them having one or two airports. We’ve proved
to them that we now have fully autonomous NCAA that carries
out its safety regulations without political interference.
That’s very crucial.
The Open Skies Agreement (OSA)
What Nigeria has with the US is OSA. They’ve told me
that once the audit is complete and we attain the Cat 1 status,
we can designate as many airlines as possible on the Lagos-US
route. It’s simply OSA. No limits. They said if we want
to bring 20 airlines, that’s our business. The US is
big, very big market. It’ll boost tourism and trade
because America is a big trading partner of Nigeria. Why should
people go through Europe to get to America? Some have no business
with Europe and they’re forced to get transit visas.
Look at the suffering and inconveniences at summer peak periods
and Christmas? It’s uncalled for. Now, that has changed.
The near-miss incident
The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) has accepted
our report and they’re working with NCAA safety inspectors
in this regard. At this stage, I’ll have to reserve
my comment because the investigation has not been concluded.
Something is going on right now. We’ve spoken with both
parties. We’ve seen the Air Traffic Controllers. But
I can’t assure you that deep actions will be taken.
After the incident, when the radar was not working, and the
screens were out, what we did was to ensure that we could
no longer have the radar control. What we now resorted to
was manual procedural air traffic control.
Also, you’ll realize that the control towers were doing
the safe tower project thing, so people resorted to using
the mobile tower, which is very low on the ground. So, under
such activities, you may expect such things to occur. But
now, effective safety measures are now in place to prevent
a reoccurrence. That’s why we’re working to perfect
the TRACON project, so that we switch to it once and for all.
The controllers on duty that day are also being quizzed. NAMA
is looking into that and we’re working with them.
Allegation that air miss is a regular occurrence
Never! It can’t be a regular occurrence because aircraft
are cleared to stay apart. That’s why they’re
controlled. They can’t be on the same level. If two
aircraft are cleared on the same flight level, of course,
there will be a mid-air collision. But sometimes, some pilots
do not keep to their call sign altitude, perhaps due to weather
or something, that could cause some problem but it is mandatory
and also a requirement that you must keep that so that you
keep a permanent distance from other aircraft. More so, when
you’re flying, you’re asked to report your position
and the onus lies with the pilot to report the correct altitude
of where you are.
I know that in some places, some times, there were instances
where people gave a wrong position when we didn’t have
a radar, so that they can land first. All that is over now
because with the radar we’ll see you. The radar will
show where you are on the screen. In the incident that happened,
it was supposed to be two screens but because of the voltage
surge, they were blown out.
Controversy over TRACON
There’s no controversy at all. What happened is that
there was a trial run. The TRACON system is very big and as
such you must debug such system. They’re debugging it
now. It’s just been installed, so they’re testing
it and once that is okay, they debug it. It’ll be deployed
into full use and it comes with full band.
Airlines insisting on selling tickets in banks
You see, there is no place in this world where people go to
bank counter and buy airlines’ tickets. You can show
me one if you’ve seen. People are just taking advantage
of our system. Let me tell you what the airlines are trying
to do. They don’t want to pay commission to the travel
agents and when they go to the banks, they make more money
because it’s a lot of cash flow. They pay no Commission
On Turnover (COT).
They pay no tax. They just walk away and transfer money out
of Nigeria. What are they talking about? The problem they
had hitherto was that there were some certain travel agents
who were unscrupulous, who take their money away. They should
ban such travel agents and that’s where it ends. It
is not in the charter of the bank to sell airlines’
tickets. What they’ll tell you is that we don’t
sell tickets, they only come and pay here. But there are some
who’re selling tickets. Some are doing that. We can
give you money now and you go there and buy tickets. What
are they talking about? Some others say, "oh, we don’t
take the tickets, the only thing we do is that after we had
sold the tickets, they’ll go and pay money, I want my
money to be safe and all that. The travel agents’ industry
in Nigeria cannot be destroyed. We must protect it.
That’s our downstream sector. And when you know that
the foreign airlines have cleaned Nigeria when it comes to
that, then we must do something. When it comes to competition,
we have not got very strong airlines like the old Nigeria
Airways. That’s what is happening. It’s very important
that banks stop selling tickets for airlines. They’re
not ticket sales outlet for airlines. You can bank with them,
but not selling your tickets.
Let me also say that there is nothing like period of grace.
The airlines and the banks cannot refuse to stop that. There’s
law and order in this country. If they want to test our weight,
they can continue. For now, we’re talking with the banks
though. There are certain airlines that do not want to contribute
to this country. All they want to do is sell tickets and clean
out. They don’t want to pay commission to travel agents
and all that. That cannot happen in their countries. There
everyone pays VAT and COT but they want to avoid that here.
Banks enjoy them because of the regular cash flow and big
money entering into their systems. But is that enough to allow
us destroy our system, destroy our economy? The answer is
no.
Challenges
One of the biggest challenges is to ensure safety. To ensure
safety is not a small task. And there are lots of components
in this system that you must make sure they are in place in
order for aviation safety to be ensured. When we’re
talking about this, we are also talking about having safety
certificates issued with due diligence. That means only appropriately
licensed crew who have done all necessary training, who met
all safety standards should be allowed to fly aeroplanes.
Every six months, they must go back and do their simulator
recurrent training.
They must also do their medicals to ensure they’re medically
fit to fly. The same applies to the engineers, the ATCs, cabin
crew etc. Indeed, all the personnel that fly aeroplane must
be appropriately licensed to do their work. Coming to the
aircraft, it must be airworthy. So, appropriate maintenance
must be done. I repeat, maintenance done on the tarmac with
torchlight in the night is nonsense. We don’t have room
for that again. That’s over. We must do the right thing.
It’s very important that things are done well. Maintenance
must be done as at when due. We put all these in place and
that is the way to go. I’m working out a modality where
we can have a safe and secured operation and yet be profitable
all year round. That’s my biggest challenge.
We want a situation where we’ve a viable airline that
operates safely in a secured manner with good profits. In
doing this, we must get good routes for them to operate.
Shortage of manpower is another major challenge. There is
shortage of manpower. Hitherto, when the former national carrier,
Nigerian Airways was operational, the government spent so
much money on training and we had enough hands on ground then.
But since the demise of that airline, the shortage began and
things have gone bad because most of the pilots you have now
were from NAL. Only few hands are springing up.
We need to replenish the old hands we have now. Airlines train
quite well, but never as before. Training costs a lot of money.
The crew of any aircraft must observe the mandatory crew rest
period. There is a limit to the priod you can use them. So,
that’s why we have the shortage. We’re at present
bringing in foreign pilots and engineers to make up for the
shortage. Things will get bad if there is no training to replenish
those on ground. Very soon, there will be no more to bring
in, so what do you do?
That apart, as we train our personnel now, we have a big problem
from China, India, the Middle-East and the South-East Asia.
Prosperity is smiling on them. Their aviation industry is
booming seriously and as such they are ready to pay five times
what we pay our people to poach them. One of them is buying
1,000 aircraft. Where will they get the personnel to fly them?
So, they’re looking at Nigeria to get some hands. In
Nigeria, we’re still lucky, even though it has affected
us as it were. If you look at our sister countries like Ethiopia
Airlines and Kenya Airways, they’re dead. The guys from
the Asian countries are now coming to the two airlines to
get pilots to fly their aeroplanes. They’re also looking
at Nigeria, we’re now operating B737-700 and they know
that Nigerian pilots are very good. If they come here to take
those people away, we can’t match the price. The salaries
and the conditions of service are much more better. They pay
twice the salary, at times three times more.
They come home every four months and go for vacation with
their wives. They ride big cars and live in big houses. So,
why would they work here? In other words, there is a looming
exodus to greener pastures abroad, this, we need to reverse
that.
Another one is looking at cutting the operational costs of
the airlines. A lot of airlines have complained about strangulating
operational costs. We need to look at the charges we’re
imposing. We need to balance that in the interest of safety.
As far as I’m concerned, we’ve zero tolerance
of safety. All other things we can discuss, but safety issues,
it’s zero tolerance. When issues of safety comes up,
it’s not what you put on the table for discussion. You
must demonstrate strict compliance with requirements. But
when it comes to the commercial aspect, we’re there
to discuss.
Training more women pilots
When you look at the statistics, the greater percentage of
those vulnerable are usually the men. Men, am sorry to say,
are like rolling stones. They can stay here today and be elsewhere
tomorrow. They don’t mind. But when you get to women,
straight from the university, you train them, they get married,
have children and all of that. They stay, they keep home,
they don’t run around like the men. So, women are the
target. They’re good investment, they’ll stay.
If you train 100 men and 100 women, at the end of the day,
you may lose 50 per cent of the men. Before you lose 10 per
cent of women, it’s hard. That’s what everybody
believes, that’s the way to go.
The Cape Town convention
The Cape Town convention that we domesticated allows us to
lease modern aircraft into the country and do away with the
older ones. For instance, the B737-200 is not fuel efficient
when compared to the 300 or 400 or 700 series. The 200 series
is what mostly we have here and the operators spend so much
on fuel and that shoots up their operational costs.
Gains of the convention
Let me say this, you’ll be shocked to find out that
today, Nigeria is no longer on the high political risk because
of what we’ve done with the Cape Town Convention. We’re
out of that list. What the high political risk means is that
you won’t do business with the international community
because you’re not trusted business-wise. The reason
is this; when you lease an aircraft or you take or lease their
equipment, they feel you can’t pay for one reason or
the other. Let me say this, credit is not a sin. We take credit
to do things.
But there is what we call norms of responsible behaviour.
When you lease something from me, you should return it to
me. You don’t lease something and go and get a court
injunction and go and sleep just because you don’t want
to pay back. That’s not right. Nigeria has passed that
stage. Having signed the Cape Town Convention, part of the
conditionality is that the DG, NCAA is empowered. So, before
an airline will gain from it, it would sign. If you default,
we would de-register the aircraft and ask it to leave. So,
we won’t allow you to put us in trouble and that will
also allow others to enjoy it. Let me ask you this. What has
happened on the popular triangle-the Lagos-Abuja, Lagos-Port
Harcourt and Lagos-Owerri? I call it triangle because most
of the accidents that happened in the country happened on
this triangle.
It’s either you’re arriving or leaving these cities
that plane crash occurs. Look critically at the triangles,
how many airlines do you see on those routes now? Where are
the old carriers with old aircraft? They’re all gone.
It’s now survival of the fittest. Now, when you travel,
you see B737-300, some 400 series, some 700 series. That’s
it. That’s what it should be. You now see modern aircraft.
The old ones are gone. Nothing like 30-something years old
aircraft again. They’re out. And that’s what we
need to do to change the system. It’s very important
for Nigeria. The international finance institutions are now
happy to do business with Nigeria because we’re growing.
That’s why we must pay glowing tribute to the aviation
ministry, the National Assembly and the Presidency for assisting
us get this through. This first step was the NCAA becoming
autonomous. Without that, we’re dead. Foreign lessors
now have peace and confidence doing business with Nigeria
because they know we’ve signed the convention.
Delayed flights
If flights are delayed because of safety, I’ve no problem
with that. We’ll not operate dangerous aircraft, we
won’t operate an unsafe airline. If an airline has a
technical problem and the flight is delayed, that’s
fine. That must be encouraged. But the crew must announce
to the passengers on that. That happens all over the world.
My flight from the UK was delayed for over three hours because
they had to change the wheels. That was okay because if it
is not changed, we may have problems on landing. The landing
gear may collapse, the aircraft may overshoot the runway etc.
If you find a fault on the ground, while wait till you get
into the air before you correct it? Correct faults you find
on the ground before you takeoff because there is no parking
space in the air.
But whereby the pilots do not inform passengers of any development
is wrong. Now, at the airport, we have the Consumer Protection
Unit (CPU) where passengers can lodge their complaints and
we’ll take decisive action. We’ve also written
to airlines that if you have any delay, you must relate it
to the passengers. You must announce it and apologise to the
passengers. They must know the cause of the delay, if is bad
weather, technical etc. It’s now mandatory.
National hangar
Let me say this, I believe we need one. Whether it is government
built, whether it is public/private partnership, all I know
is that we need one. More so, we’re basically talking
to all our airlines because that’s the way to go. Maintenance
done on the tarmac at night with torchlight in the rain is
not acceptable. And we’ve stopped that. We know it’s
going to cost a lot of money to fly those aircraft outside
Nigeria for maintenance. So, it’s very crucial that
we have places to maintain these aircraft and it’s a
thing that must be done in Nigeria. A hangar can cost between
$10 million dollars, small one could be $5 million and it
can be as high as $300 million. It depends on the size you
want to build. If you want B737, it’s a small hangar,
if you want to build for B777, it’s a big hangar and
if it’s for B747, it’s a much bigger one. It all
depends on what you want.
Some airlines have applied to FAAN for space to build their
hangars. Some have been given land and they’re yet to
build. Most of them are working on it. I’m very happy
that most of the airlines are working on having a hangar.
It’s now on the drawing board which I think it’s
going to be a major plus because if you don’t do it,
you have to fly out the aircraft for maintenance. By that
time, you find out that it’s no longer cost effective.
NCAA enforcing hangar ownership
It’s not mandatory that an airline must have a hangar.
If you want, you can contract your maintenance out and if
you contract the maintenance out, that is done all over the
world. But it costs you more money and it tells on your overhead
if you must keep flying your aircraft out for maintenance.
At least, you need a hangar to carry out routine maintenance,
on schedule maintenance, defect rectification. What is helping
us is that we have an Air Force hangar, where we’ve
been leasing and using for some of the minor maintenance.
That is really what is helping us, if not, it would have been
a major disaster. Hitherto, we all went to NAL hangar but
NAL is liquidated now. I believe we’ll get a good hangar
very soon.
European Union blacklisting African airlines
Yes! The European Union (EU) has blacklisted some African
airlines on safety grounds. Africa has a high accident rate,
no doubt about that. Africa has not done well in that regard
when you look at the figures. We have the highest of the records.
But I must say this very clearly, half of the accidents that
occur in Africa are not even aircraft registered in Africa.
Those aircraft were registered in other places. They just
come to operate in Africa and that is because there is no
safety oversight. A lot of rubbish happen here and they crash.
There are also illegal operations into Africa. They come from
countries of flag of convenience. There they get dubious safety
certificates, forged licences and all of that. They come around
here and mess around, particularly during charter operations
like the Hajj and co. That’s why you see us grounding
them here and there and throwing them out of the country.
We also have our peculiar problems because airline operations
in Africa can be categorized as airline operations in a depressed
economy. And because of that, you hardly find brand new aeroplanes
in African skies. Brand new aeroplanes cost a lot of money.
In fact, our biggest challenge in Nigeria is that the flying
public are not happy with us. They always say we’re
flying ageing aircraft. That’s why we’ve worked
on the Cape Town Convention. And I’m happy we’re
making progress on that because that is actually improving
now.
Flying old aircraft
The fact that an aircraft is old does not make it unsafe for
flight operations. It’s good for operations as far as
it’s well maintained. So, our emphasis must be that
old aircraft must be well maintained. New aircraft can also
crash. A good example is the Kenya Airways B737-800 aircraft
that crashed in Cameroon. The aircraft was only six months
old, and it took three days to locate where the aircraft was.
Fine, it had the ELT on, but the airplane went into mud. It
was covered in mud. So, even the ELT could not work. I know
if it was in Nigeria, I know the Press would have crucified
NCAA. That tells you that accidents do occur. The aircraft
in question was not a Tokunbo aircraft but a brand new one.
People kept asking what could have caused that crash, but
it’s still the same bad weather. I’ve told you
weather can be very bad. When we held that seminar on weather,
I said it clearly that we have a tropical revolving storm
in Africa. This is the Gulf of Guinea. When it starts, I always
say, wait and let the evil pass over, then you go. If you
refuse and run into it and get into the cell, it’s going
to throw you out. That happens all the time. But the fact
remains that operating ageing aircraft costs more in maintenance
than new ones.
Dealing with compromising safety officers
There are checks and balances in the system and that’s
why we have all the audits. Because of the checks and balances
we have in the system, even when you try to compromise, we’re
going to catch you. Like I keep saying, it’s zero tolerance
when it comes to safety. The way they can compromise is issuance
of safety certificates and if you’re caught, that person
is gone.
That person is dismissed. Safety certificates are not issued
anyhow. So, because you’re my friend, I then give you
a B747 licence when you’re not. What do I want you to
do with it? To go and kill people? You should not do such
things. That’s why it’s zero tolerance, you’re
out and that is if the action was a honest mistake. That’s
the first thing. But if we discover it was quite intentional,
we would not hesitate to hand the person over justice ministry
for possible criminal prosecution.
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