By Chinelo Obogo, [email protected] 07064781119
Over the years, aviation, tourism experts have attributed the lack of development in both sectors to governance failure and the lack of political will to enforce sound policies. At differnt fora, airlines, ground handlers, private investors and other stakeholders have often cited what they refer to as ‘policy summersaults’ of the Federal Government, saying even when such policies are being formulated, those who would be most affected are usually excluded.
An aviation and tourism expert, Mr. Ikechi Uko, says that both sectors are not developing as they should because the country has no national cohesive policy to make them profitable. He said even when there have been policies, there has been no consistent implementation.
Inconsistent policies
I would not want to cite Ethiopian Airlines as an example of how airlines can promote aviation and tourism but I would rather use Middle East countries because Ethiopia does not have oil but Middle East countries do and they invested their oil in aviation and tourism sectors. So what one expects from Nigeria is for the government to do what the Middle East countries did, that is, invest in tourism, aviation, services and make things possible. That is my own understanding of what has gone wrong.
There is no national policy and even when there has been, there has been no consistent implementation. We don’t have a national policy that covers tourism and aviation as they are all one product. If you see the Middle East countries that do aviation and tourism, Ethiopia is trying to copy the same. They have done aviation well and they now know that without tourism, aviation would just hang, so they are investing in that. I think it is that absence of a national cohesive policy and successful implementation that is the missing link Nigeria.
What do we want to achieve with aviation? Is it just to move people from one place to the other? You listen to different people and the Managing Director of an airline says he is setting up an airline to create jobs, you can also create jobs through other means if that is the issue. Other people set up airlines for national pride, to extend the flag, as a soft power project among others. So, there has to be a reason why you set up an aviation business. Do we have a national consensus on why we have our aviation? No, we don’t. Do we know why we need to invest in tourism and aviation and link the two? We see that Dubai is a cargo, passenger and tourism hub, that is a national policy and it is the same for Nairobi, Johannesburg and others. Nigeria needs to be a hub for cargo, passenger and the thing that makes one work, makes the other work but I don’t know if any policy exists that links up these visions. In Nigeria, we are just carrying passengers and moving them from one point to the other because there is no integration of any sort.
There are experts in different areas and we need to be able to bring these experts together to talk about where we are going to. If we know the destination, then it is easy to make a plan on how to get to the destination. We heard someone say that by 2035, they will get 10 million tourists, which is a plan and this is what we are going to do to get that number and we can work towards it. What is our plan in Nigeria? The first thing we need to do is get experts together and form a plan. We can come up with a plan to say we need to be able to have 20 million passengers pass through this airport in the next five years and out of those 20 million, at least five million should be non-Nigerians.
Why many airports are not viable
How many airlines do you have? How many aircraft do we have flying in Nigeria? Are they up to 40? If you have 22 airports and your country has 15 to 20 aircraft available, they can’t fly to these places when there is no national plan to distribute them. What is happening in Nigeria today is that we have surplus in some areas and scarcity in other areas. So there is no even distribution of practically everything. Everyone can afford to fly because the cost of going by road is higher than flying. Why is banditry and kidnapping growing in Nigeria? It is because there is money. Why don’t we use that money to fly and be safe? But there are no flights because there are no planes. The airports need planes to fly and that is why there is need for a national policy. How many seats does Peace Mass Transit bus carry and they are connecting all the towns in Nigeria.
If there is a policy were we can have an airport in every capital city and some incentives are given to people, the airport would become viable. There are people in every town in this country and Nigeria has at least 10 to 15 towns that have up to two million residents and out of that, if 10,000 people can afford to fly, it is enough to keep an airline afloat. A simple 20-seater aircraft that carries 10,000 people has done a lot but an ABC bus carries more passengers than an Embraer 145. Luxury buses carry more passengers than airplanes and they are profitable, yet traveling by road is far more dangerous than travelling by air.
Why Nigerian airlines fail
It is because there is no national vision, so people who have airlines are not seen as development agents. If the government sees them as development agents, they would help them to succeed. Why do Nigerians understand when ASUU goes on strike? It is because Nigerians think that these people are contributing to the growth of the country and you are depriving them of the small reward they are getting. So, if we begin to see our airlines as development agents, our attitude to them would be different. Everyone should help airlines succeed because without airlines there is no movement.
We are demanding a lot from them, yet they are confronted with foreign currency fluctuation, inefficient airports amon other challenges. I know an airline that has just eight aircraft and they fly to over 20 destinations yet there are airlines in Nigeria that has more aircraft but do not fly more than 14 destinations. Airlines outside Nigeria fly for 24 hours unlike oue local airlines in Nigeria, so, why won’t Nigerian airlines fail? The infrastructure and environment is also a problem. I’m not saying that the guys who run the airlines are good business men but they are investors and they should be treated as such because without airlines there would be no aviation business.
I don’t own an airline but I have read and have organised conferences where people who should know discuss and everyone says the model that most airlines in Nigeria use are copied from each other and that’s why they fail. Most people would copy what the last person did and fail like the last person did. This is what the experts say and I am seeing some people who are doing it. I don’t really know what they are doing wrong but we all agree that something isn’t right.
How airlines can generate revenue from tourism
The problem with Nigeria is that tourism is an orphan. No one owns tourism and no one makes any effort towards its development. Tourism in most countries have been driven by airlines because it is resilient and generates large numbers. A billion people travel every year and if you are able to keep a part of that number moving through your airport and using your plane, you are in business. But in Nigeria, airlines are interested in flying people to Abuja and bringing them back. We have done some experiments which was very successful with some airlines. The biggest cost for tourism packages is transportation, so once someone comes in to handle transportation, a tour package is easy to sell and that is the role of government that buys buses and gives to tour operators.
Most airlines in Nigeria have not seen the benefit of collaborating with tour operators because it is not urgent. Tour operators in Nigeria have not been built big, they are all small organizations, so, if for instance, an airline says that for every tour package to Calabar, you pay N25,000 and we dedicate 10 per cent of our seats for this, they would benefit a lot along the line because they would help grow a business. FAAN was involved in growing Carnival Calabar because the airport was not getting business. FAAN wanted the airport to get business, so it supported the tour operators and Cross River State Government for the launch of the carival and it turned out to be the most successful event in Africa.
Those times that aircraft fly empty, can the airlines call tour operators and say for instance, ‘on Saturdays and Sundays when we fly at 50 per cent, we can offer 20 seats at a particular rate.’ Every hotel in Abuja have what they call weekend rate, which is 50 percent but most airlines would say tour operators want to use them to make money but what they don’t understand is that they need money to market the programme because they are the ones who bring in customers. Most people who set up airlines do not know how airlines in other countries work. The people who understand are Nigerians who worked with Virgin Nigeria, so they saw how an international airline is run. The same thing happens to sales managers of hotels; many of them have never worked in an international hotel, so they don’t know how things are done. Our biggest problem in Nigeria is lack of exposure. There are well established charlatans in Nigeria who are in positions of authority and power but they really don’t know much. When you are already successful with ignorance, why do you want knowledge?