Louis Ibah
The Nigerian Aviation Handling Company Plc (Nahco Aviance) said it is investing about N3.6 billion in the procurement and installation of new set of equipment to boost its ground handling and cargo import and export business, it’s Group Managing Director, Mrs. Olatokunbo Fagbemi, said.
Fagbemi who spoke at a maiden press briefing following her recent appointment as NAHCO’s CEO also disclosed that the firm at present controls 60 per cent of market share of the ground hadling business in Nigeria’s aviation industry. She said the firm would be making a foray into the West African sub-regional airports to provide ground handling services as part of its market expansion programme.
Fagbemi said the company was expecting the first batch of state-of-the arts equipment worth about N1.9billion to arrive the country before the end of the first quarter of 2019, while another set of technological equipment worth N1.7billion is expected before the end of the year.
“By the end of the year, we would have spent about N3.6billion in state of the art equipment. In the last few months we have invested over N1.9billion in equipment which you will begin to see by the end of the first quarter of the year,” said Fagbemi.
“We also believe that by September 2019, we would have the next set of equipment available. So that’s what we are doing in terms of investment in equipment at NAHCO,” she added.
She said the company was making serious efforts at the diversification of its business from ground handling to other sectors in a bid to boost revenue, stressing that serious consideration was being given to the establishment of a free trade zone as well as in the cargo, and energy businesses.
Said Fagbemi, “We have NAHCO energy, NAHCO free trade zone, the Mainland cargo options, we have the energy and infrastructure company and all these companies are being efficiently run as we want to put them together to get synergy so we can get the full benefit of the businesses.”