By Chinelo Obogo, [email protected]
As travel restrictions impact expansion and operational efficiency of many international carriers across continents, Qatar Airways says it is expanding its operations to certain countries on the African continent, specifically, Nigeria.
The airline’s Vice-President Africa, Hendrik du Preez, who spoke to Daily Sun on plans to increase connectivity to commercial hubs and other possible locations in Nigeria, said Qatar Airways sees tremendous growth potential for travel and trade in the country and thus, has increased its flight schedules and expanded its operations with the addition of new routes to and from Doha – through Kano and Port Harcourt.
In January, Daily Sun reported how the Federal Government was criticised by industry stakeholders for granting international airlines entry into more airports, saying the action was detrimental to local airlines. They said foreign airlines can be allowed as many frequencies as it wishes per day to one airport, then through interlining, the domestic airlines can be assured of improved domestic markets by distributing international passengers for connection with these foreign airlines.
However, Hendrik du Preez, told Daily Sun that code sharing and interlining are part of Qatar’s global strategies and that have different types of partnerships with many airlines globally and about 20 in Africa. He said even though they don’t have such an arrangement currently in place in Nigeria, code sharing and interlining with domestic airlines is definitely something that they would explore in the future.
Expanding operations in Africa
During the pandemic, we never stopped flying and at the least point, we were operating to 33 destinations and are back to over 140 destinations. We learned a lot during this period as we worked closely with many governments round the world in repatriating people. When countries closed their borders, we worked with governments to get people back home and there is a lot that we learned during that period in order for us to keep on flying and which is why we were able to identify expansion oppourtunities.
While lots of airlines stopped flying into certain countries, we tried to maintain our schedule as much as possible and due to the fact we kept on flying, we had a lot of people partnering with us and using our services and that was one of the key reasons behind the fact that we were able to expand into Africa.
During the COVID period, we launched six new destinations; Abuja, Accra, Abidjan, Luanda in Angola, Lusaka in Zambia and Harare in Zimbabwe.
The fact that many airlines stopped flying but we didn’t stop, helped us to open these new routes and they have been very successful for us. In some destinations, we started operations with three flights a week but we have increased to seven flights a week. We initially started with Abuja as a tag flight to Lagos but last year, we de-tagged that flight and Abuja became a direct flight and now with the addition of Kano and Port Harcourt, Abuja would be daily with the tags to Kano and Port Harcourt.
Increasing our flight frequencies in Nigeria
It is something that we consistently look at and monitor. Like I said, at first, we started flying back to Nigeria once a day, which we then increased to two flights a day and we tagged Abuja to it because initially, Abuja was a tag flight via Lagos. We then de-tagged Abuja when we saw that there was a bigger demand, then we saw that there was oppoutunity for us to have direct flights into Abuja and as more markets were opening up, we started Kano and Port Harcourt. Obviously, we constantly monitor the market, so that if there are oppourtunities that come up, we will explore further. As more countries and countries open up, there is a bigger demand and we monitor to see if the demand justifies the addition of more frequencies into those markets.
Code sharing with domestic airlines
Code sharing and interlining are definitely part of our global strategies and we work very closely with partner airlines. We have got different types of partnerships with many airlines globally and in Africa. We have partners in the different countries that we work with, so, that is definitely something that we would explore.
A lot of times, the domestic carriers have their footprints across the rest of the country and Nigeria is quite big with a huge population, so for us, looking to partner gives an oppourtunity to extend the domestic carrier’s footprint internationally as well, bringing people from all over the country to the airports that we fly to then we can distribute them and move people globally again. We don’t have such an arrangement currently in place but it is definitely something that we would explore in the future. Like I said, in Africa, we have about 20 partner airlines that we work closely with.
There are many domestic airlines all over Africa that are very successful and have been at it for many years and for us, one of the key things that is very important is safety, which is why when we pick prospective partners, we need to make sure that they also have all the regulator’s safety precautions and certificates in place. I think that this is one of the biggest challenges a lot of African carriers face, is to get the right certifications in place. So, for us, when looking for the right partners, we ensure that they have all the systems and security measures and that is how we establish relationships.
Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM)
Qatar Airways and SAATM are complementary to each other and we don’t see our expansion inhibiting the growth of African carriers, intra African trade or tourism. I think that sometimes, a lot of people do not realise the size of our continent. I am South African for instance and traveling from South Africa to Europe is a 12-hour flight and in many instances, it is difficult to travel to places in-between Africa. So it is a huge oppourtunity for unlocking more travel in Africa. The easier travel becomes, the more people have access to it and with connectivity to the rest of the world and we can potentially have people travelling from all parts of Africa to other parts of the world.
According to the statistics released the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the African aviation industry has been billed as the fastest aviation market in the world in the coming years and I believe it is currently a much under-served market. Currently, there are places in Africa where people have to travel for two or three days on road just to get from one country to another, so the more oppourtunities for expanding air travel in Africa, the better and more accessible for more people to travel. Overall, with the growth of the African aviation market, there are lots of oppourtunities for everyone.
Recovery post pandemic
Like I mentioned earlier, we never stopped flying even during the pandemic. The least amount of destinations that we covered during the pandemic was 33 and we restarted as many as we could. There were challenges during the pandemic where certain countries closed their borders and we were not able to fly, but at the same time, we worked closely with many governments in order to repatriate people back home, which was one of our key missions. We did a lot of learning during that period, like how to operate safely, which enabled us restart our operations as quickly as possible and start new operations which many other carriers weren’t able to do at the same time.
Workforce in Nigeria
We have got over 100 Nigerians who work in many different aspects of the company but the key issue here is what aviation does for a country in stimulating the economy. There are service providers like the ground handling companies and others in Nigeria that benefit from our operations and you should also consider the job creation that comes with it. There are more airports that we are supporting and there are staff at the airports that facilitate our services there. This is a multiplier effect of creating a multitude of new jobs just by virtue of our flying into the country.
Aviation policies
Challenges are not unique to Nigeria but from a global perspective in the short term, some of the issues that we are currently facing is that so many countries have different COVID requirements for travel. In order to facilitate travel, there should be some salient requirements like what is needed for people. Some of the issues that have been challenging for us is the testing and quarantine requirements of different countries. On a global basis, we need policies that are fairly standard, that would enhance the confidence of people to travel again and that is one of the biggest challenges that airlines are facing right now and also the facilities need to be improved to make the travel experience better.
There haven’t been specific challenges we have faced in Nigeria because there has been a lot of learning for us. As an international company, we learn a lot from the different countries we operate in and we also learn a lot from working closely with our colleagues, this helps us to always implement the right processes. We have had a lot of support from the Nigerian government with our expansion processes and from every relevant agency in the country, which we are very grateful for.
What customers should expect
Earlier in the year, we won the Skytrax award for the best airline for the sixth time and we also got the award for the best Business Class, so we constantly imporoving our services to our customers and so the key factor in the last two years for us was to provide a great travel experience and even with that, we never compromised on our service standards and the fact that we and even our airport, Hamad International Airport are winning these awards is testament to consistently providing the best services and our customers from Nigeria would know that they are flying the best airline in the world.