Flight delays, cancellations and fuel call for local route cut
The recent spike in flight delays and cancellations on local routes by indigenous airlines has triggered the call on the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to reduce the operating routes of some of the domestic airlines.
Aviation experts said that any airline with just two aircraft in its fleet should be restricted to a maximum of four routes and limited landings daily.
In recent times, there has been an increase in the number of flight delays and cancellations in the domestic scene among all the indigenous carriers with some of their customers delayed for about eight hours at different airports without adequate compensation as stipulated in the Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulations (NCARs).
The schedule integrity of an average Nigerian airline has also dropped to about 62 percent, while industry standard is 75 percent.
Investigation by Daily Independent revealed that for 2023, Nigerian airlines recorded about 40,512 flight delays and over 400 flight cancellations.
All the indigenous scheduled airlines recorded flight delays across all routes.
Also, in the past one year, the fleets of aircraft of most of the operating carriers had nosedived to just above 40 from about 110 due to numerous factors, which included foreign exchange scarcity, inadequate funds and poor infrastructure.
For instance, at present, most Nigerian airlines have between two and three aircraft in their fleets, except Air Peace, Overland Airways and Ibom Air.
Speaking on the issue, Mr. Chris Aligbe, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Belujane Konzult, said that operations of any airline with just about two aircraft should be limited to certain services.
Aligbe lamented that while most Nigerian airlines had fallen below industry standard in schedule integrity, the reverse was the case with Africa World Airlines (AWA) from Ghana, which its image had received a boost in recent years.
Aligbe called on the NCAA to give a template to the airlines, depending on their operating aircraft, stressing that with this, delays and cancellations would be minimised.
The former image maker of Nigeria Airways, the defunct national carrier, also wondered why the airlines had refused to collaborate or partner with each other despite the push for it, maintaining that none of them could go it alone.
He said: “There is no reason an airline with just two aircraft should not be told the number of routes it can fly by the NCAA. For instance, the NCAA can say that if you have two aircraft, you cannot do more than a maximum of five routes. We can upscale it that way; we do not need to go very far. Look at AWA for instance, the airline started how many years ago? It cut off all the West Coast flights and only flies in Nigeria and Ghana. In Nigeria, it flies into Lagos and Abuja multiple times.
“It doesn’t go to Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal, but it has a level of scheduled integrity at 92 percent while here, we are at 62 percent and even fall below our schedule reliability. AWA maximises the use of the aircraft it has. A year, it has about 2.5 million passengers and most of them are Nigerian passengers. AWA has 10 codeshare partners and all of them are the top big airlines: Emirates, Qatar Airways, British Airways, Air France and others.
“Like someone said, we can’t make it as a point-to-point carrier. The truth of the issue is that let us help the airlines since we have told the airlines over time to share among themselves their passengers if they can’t fly at a particular point in time, but they have refused over the years.
“May be the NCAA can give them a template; if you have four aircraft, there is the number of routes you can fly and don’t approve more than that. So, that way, if they want to operate reasonably and sensibly, passengers will not suffer as much as they are suffering.”
Also, Mr. Olumide Ohunayo, Director, Research, Zenith Travels, said that restraining airlines with reduced fleet to limited routes would improve the integrity of the aviation value chain in Nigeria – airlines, regulator (NCAA) and the passengers.
Ohunayo declared that industry norm was for airlines with depleted fleets to suspend operations into some of their routes, pending the return of their airplanes, but decried that the reverse was the case with Nigerian airlines, which still wanted to keep their existing routes, irrespective of the unpleasant situation.
Like Aligbe, Ohunayo regretted that Nigerian airlines had failed to have proper commercial agreement like codeshare, interline and others with each other, recalling that Aviation Round Table (ART), industry pressure group, in one of its breakfast meetings, came up with resolutions on collaboration among the airlines, yet, they resisted it.
Also, Ohunayo said that lack of adequate equipment, infrastructure at the nation’s airports, presidential movement and poor service provisions by handling companies and others, contributed to flight delays and cancellations.
These, he explained, were out of the control of the airlines and wanted the government to improve on the provision of facilities at the various airports to enhance scheduled integrity for the operators.
“However, you cannot force a commercial agreement on any airline; you can only encourage them. But, we have to bring some sanity into delays and cancellations.
“There are lots of other reasons for flight delays and cancellations. If you talk to the airlines, they will give you 16 to 17 reasons out of their control.
“However, with the new NCAA and the vigours that we have seen in consumer protection directorate and the assurances that there will now be discipline against any airline that delays or cancels flights, I think this will improve from what we have in the past and the integrity of the airlines is expected to soar higher,” he said.
Besides, Dr. Alex Nwuba, President of Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association of Nigeria (AOPAN), described the call for limiting airlines with reduced fleets as a worthy call for the industry.
He, however, attributed reduction in fleet size, which resulted in flight delays and cancellations to the state of the economy.
Also, Nwuba decried that inflation had negatively impacted on fares, thereby leading to reduced demand, while high exchange rate combined with availability challenges had further affected demand and the ability of airlines to maintain their fleets.
He added: “You can only imagine if the fleet size remained at its optimum while demand declined. So, the delays are not the direct attribute of fleet size, but airline efficiency.”
He further called for a change of operational model from the airlines in order to remain in business.
At the South-West Regional Air Transportation Summit (SWRATS) 2024, hosted by the NCAA, last week, Sen. Buhari Abdulfatai, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Aviation, had canvassed reduction of routes for some indigenous airlines by the apex regulatory body in order to ensure schedule integrity.
Abdulfatai had lamented that while other countries’ airlines took on-time departure seriously, the reverse was the case with the Nigerian carriers as they continually violated passengers’ rights without sanction from the NCAA.
He proposed that any airline with just two aircraft in its fleet for instance, should be limited to a few airports and landings, maintaining that this would lead to massive reduction in flight delays and cancellations.
He also proposed a minimum of four aircraft for a startup carrier and charged the NCAA to stand up to its responsibilities of over-sighting the industry.
