Migerian Airlines: "We need to Cooperate more and stand by each other"
Ahead of a possible resumption of flights on the 21st of June, operators have deemed it extremely important to support each other in this trying period of the COVID-19 and its negative impact on the industry. This is just as operators have assured prospective customers that all safety measures have been put in place to ensure their safety onboard the aircraft and at airports.
Just few weeks ago, the Director General, Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority has announced in a letter to the both foreign and domestic airlines the approval of 5 airports for flight operations, these include, the Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, kano and Owerri airports.
Speaking at webinar by the Aviation RoundTable Safety Initiative, ARTSI, the Accountable Manager for Dana Air, Mr. Obi Mbanuzo call for cooperation among operations to defeat the pandemic and for the survival of the business. He however noted that, though the industry had been hard hit globally, merger was not the way forward for airlines who are battling to stay afloat.
“One thing I also think we also have to do in the industry as operators we have to cooperate more and more with ourselves, some people always say mergers I don’t believe is the way to go, you cannot force mergers on airlines it is when airlines have common goals, common procedures that they might think of mergers but I think one thing that has to be done is we have to cooperate more with each other.”
Mbanuzo expressed sadness that some airlines have been left alone to swim on their own in the waters of aeropolitics without assistance from fellow operators and the concerned authorities, adding a lot had been invested in aircraft, personnel among others.
“Some airlines are not finding it very easy especially with aeropolitics, a lot has to do with the fact that our operators have struggled, they have invested serious amount of money in wide-bodied aircraft looking in to fly to other countries and we the operators have not gone behind that one operator.”
“If we have Medview tomorrow and current Airpeace of today, why is it that only Airpeace aggregate its passengers then operate to Sharjah or Dubai, why can’t a Dana Air not join in aggregating passengers for Airpeace to Sharjah, why cant an Aero Contractor do the same? One thing that we also have to do among the operators is a lot more cooperation. what we also need to trickle down is the fact that for example we have one or two operators going into Akure, we can give that operator support, somebody can come to my office tomorrow andpurchase a ticket from Abuja to Akure, I don’t operate Akure which is one thing we have to do.”
