New Telegraph

Air Peace, Ibom Air, United Nigeria pick Embraer

The serious impact of COVD-19 is forcing Nigerian airlines to restrategise as big is no longer desirable to them. The country’s airlines have taken the decision to reduce their fleet size or change entirely their business model to smaller and efficient airplanes.

 

To underscore the new business idea, Nigeria’s biggest airline by fleet size, Air Peace, took delivery of new Brazilian Embraer 195-E2 aircraft, thus making the Nigerian carrier the first in Africa to acquire the latest aircraft

 

The carrier is the first African carrier to take delivery of the aircraft type out of the 13 firm orders with another 17 purchase right orders, making a total of 30 Embraer planes being expected, thus making the airline second to Lufthansa globally, which ordered for 35 of the same aircraft type.

 

A new airline, Nigeria United Nigeria, which plans to begin domestic flight services first quarter 2021, had decided to start with narrow body Embaer 147, fuel efficient airplanes. As the pandemic swept through the industry, many airlines were trying to sustain their daily operations as demand for passenger flights hit an all-time lows from March, April and July 2020.

 

The situation has not significantly changed for the better up till now. While some carriers resorted to layoffs, operations’ down-scaling and restructuring of their business, major passenger airlines explored a new service – cargo transportation on passenger aircraft.

 

As airlines rationalise their fleets as part of their survival strategies, aviation expert, who pleaded anonymity, told New Telegraph that narrow body and regional aircraft may become more important to their immediate recoveries. He disclosed that many of them were walking a tight rope with prediction that only two airlines in Nigeria may survive the deadly effects of COVID-19, adding that Ibom Air had a great future with the type of aircraft they operate.

 

It is a smart airline. While it uses the right size of airplanes, virtually all other carriers with B737 classics and a few next generation aircraft could say Mayday to them.

 

According to the source, “the longest distance in Nigeria by air is one and half hours. In places like Europe, one and half hours distances are operated by trains, which is more economical. But, when you want to fly to such distance in Europe, you use a turboprop aircraft. A CRJ900 aircraft is same minute a B737 in terms of speed and the fuel consumption is about 30 to 40 per cent less than bigger airplanes.”

 

Leases on bigger and fuel guzzling airplanes do not make sense any longer. The lease rental on these aircraft is expensive and the reason the lease is expensive is because many Nigerians have violated the Cape Town Convention agreement, which Nigeria is a signatory to by refusing to release airplanes to their owners through litigations that tend to paint Nigeria as a risky country to do business with.

 

Anybody leasing aircraft to Nigerian companies doubles the price because of the risks of getting the aircraft impounded by Nigerian operators.

 

“That is why lease costs are too high. Nigerian airlines are bleeding as over 35 charges levied on airlines by different aviation agencies are no longer sustainable in the midst of low passenger traffic, high cost of aviation fuel among others at a period carriers are operating less than 50 per cent of their capacity,” he added.

 

Chief Executive Officer of Ropeways Limited and a former Managing Director of Virgin Nigeria, Capt. Dapo Olumide, said airlines’ problems were self inflicted with use of wrong type of aircraft for domestic operations. He predicted that by the end of this year, there would be no more than two airlines flying because of their overhead, querying how many of the aircraft are owned by the operators. His words: “You are leasing these aircraft in dollars.

 

You are not leasing them in naira or India rupees. The dollar that you leased them at the time was probably N360/$, now the dollar is N500. The problem of the airlines as they are now is self inflicted. They have wrong type of aircraft for domestic operations.”

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