Aero Contractors and wicked Corporate Governance
A Lagos bound Aero Contractors flight returned to Kano on Sunday, March 21, 2021 after one of the engines of the aircraft was hit by bird during take-off in what is popularly known as bird strike.
Management of the airline, in a statement, explained that for precautionary and safety reasons, “Aero Contractors had to make arrangements to ferry the aircraft back to Lagos to enable our engineers undertake a check on the engines and secure the approval of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) before returning it to service.”
It further explained that when the Captain heard the sound of the bird strike, he made a safety and professional decision to return to land in Kano, despite all the engines being normal and within limit. It further stated that, “After close examination, with the approval of NCAA and Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), the aircraft was ferried back to Lagos for further examination. We are currently doing everything possible to bring our passengers back to Lagos.”
The carrier expressed regrets over the inconveniences suffered by its passengers on flight N2 142 which occurred at take-off.
Aero Contractors is Nigeria’s oldest aviation company. It commenced business in 1959, initially providing services to oil and gas sector, before venturing into fix wing operations in the year 2000. AMCON took over the organisation in February 2016, due to bad corporate governance and insolvency.
In January this year, AMCON appointed the former Director of Flight Operations of Arik Air, Captain Abdullahi Mahmood, as the Chief Executive Officer of Aero Contractors.
This followed the step down of Captain Ado Sanusi on December 31, 2020, as the CEO of the airline. When you go on an airplane, you generally expect to have a safe, uneventful plane ride with an experienced cabin crew. However, accidents can occur while flying, with one of the most common being bird strikes.
These airplane accidents happen when the plane collides with a bird, leading to sometimes devastating consequences. Thousands of airplane bird strikes occur in the skies each year, but many airlines have developed techniques to avoid these incidents.
A bird strike accident occurs when a bird strikes the aircraft while in flight. These impacts usually occur on the airplane’s windshield or into one or both of its engines. In most cases, these bird strikes lead to damage to the aircraft. However, some bird strike accidents have resulted in fatalities and serious accidents.
Both large birds and flocks of birds can cause damage to planes. They can harm the windscreen and be sucked into the engines. These occurrences lead to unsafe flying conditions and critical damage, often leading the airplane to make an emergency landing.
According to Bird Strike Committee USA, bird strikes are very common and can lead to devastating consequences.
Since 1988, over 219 people have died as a result of bird strikes while traveling by airplane.
In 2010 alone, the United States Air Force reported 5,000 bird strike incidents. Civil aircraft reported 9,000 bird and wildlife strikes in the United States the same year. Between 1990 and 2009, bird strike accidents led to about $650 million in damages to civil aviation in the United States.
Because bird strikes lead to such dangerous situations, airports have developed certain strategies to minimize their occurrence. It is not very easy to determine liability in a bird strike accident. You could hold the airport at fault for not taking appropriate measures to reduce the prevalence of birds in the area.
You could also hold the airline at fault for not taking precautions to avoid the birds. However, these entities can use an act of God defense to reduce their liability. In a statement on Sunday, Aero Contractors said: “We are currently doing everything possible to bring our passengers back to Lagos.” The airline needs to explain to the public how it humiliated the almost 100 passengers on board the flight after the air return and how they got back to Lagos. It was a horrible experience, though not unusual with the beleaguered airline.
What it did to its passengers in Kano was a clear violation of the Standards And Recommended Practices (SARPs) adopted by the Council of ICAO in accordance with Article 37 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation.
The regulations generally provide obligations for the airline towards their passengers in case of flight disruptions. Mostly, the airline is required to reimburse the ticket price paid by the passenger, reroute the passengers to their final destination, or provide services during the waiting time caused by the delay. These services are similar in most regulations and usually include items such as free access to communications, refreshments, meals, accommodation and transport.
More than 24 hours after the incident, there was no communication between Aero contractors and its stranded passengers.
Many of them suffered untold hardships at the departure lounge of the unkempt Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport. The mosquitoes at the lounge are special breeds only meant for inmates on death rows at the Gasua Prison in Zamfara State.
At about 8pm on that fateful Sunday, information got to the stranded passengers that Aero Contractors had been magnanimous enough to ferry another aircraft to bring the passengers back to Lagos at 10.30pm.
Many heaved a sigh of relief, but their joy was short-lived when they heard again that the airline would only be able to accommodate only 39 of them in a scheduled Air Peace flight to Lagos. The Boeing 777-200ER aircraft belonging to Air Peace was unable to accommodate all passengers to Lagos at about 11pm, and Aero did nothing about the welfare of other stranded passengers.
Those who could not afford extra hotel accommodation passed the night at the mosquito infested lounge, while others made frantic moves to secure emergency accommodation inside the ancient city of Kano. There were no words of comfort or consolation from the dying airline which says it is the reliable way to fly.
It succeeded in flying all angry passengers back to Lagos on Monday through its scheduled Kano-Lagos flight at 08:30. Aero Contractors has been in trouble over the years because it did not know that customers play a key role in any business. The airline did not know that without customers, no business can survive.
The regulators must compel the organisation to comply with the enabling laws that make it mandatory for airline operators to meet global standards.
