The fall of Arik Air is the failure of NCAA

There is no doubt that the country’s aviation sector is presently at a crossroad, no thanks to the ‘calamity’ that befell its largest domestic airline, Arik Air.

It was not a surprise to many within the sector in view of the sad stories that had surrounded the airline which reached its peak between 2015/2016. However, the low side of the sad tales became obvious in the earth-shaking rot that had engulfed the airline that are so deep as was uncovered by the latest unfolding events.

Therefore, since the takeover of the country’s flag carrier by the government’s Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) for a rescue mission to save the airline from total collapse, it has been one sad story or the other.

Prior to the takeover of Arik Air, the airline had been enmeshed in deep mess brought upon it majorly by its style of doing things.

Many saw the failure of the airline coming due to many factors, ranging from its ownership structure which hampered the ability to run the airline professionally, the huge fortunes spent on too many expatriates that almost took over the workforce of the airline at a point, the use of wrong aircraft on routes, the financial carelessness of the airline as seen in its huge indebtedness to virtually all its clients including its workers.

At a point, the airline lacked credibility such that none of its financial partners including banks, oil marketers, insurers,  the aviation agencies and handling companies were willing  to transact business with it unless on a cash and carry basis.

The height of the mess reared its head in the tug of war that occurred between the airline and its numerous passengers on various routes. Throughout last year, it was either a story of flight cancellation, flight delays due to the refusal of the oil marketers to supply the airline aviation fuel because of debts or passengers protesting at the airports over their ill treatment by the airline officials.

On this premise, it was a bag of mixed feelings when AMCON took over last week.

The question in the mouth of stakeholders and the general public is why an airline like Arik that was once the darling of many travellers should lose the goodwill it earlier garnered.

Many key players who have spoken had attributed the rot to the mismanagement of the airline to the involvement of the owner at the expense of professionalism. Indeed, if the airline had been allowed to run in line with international standards in respect to professionalism, the financial recklessness it found itself would have been avoided.

It was therefore shocking to many to hear that the airline was indebted to the tune of N300 billion, while the new management has come out to say that it required N10 billion to clean the Aegean stable at the airline.

There are 1001 questions calling for answers from the owners and the former management of the airline on how they allowed the debt to pile up, owe workers for months and allow the fleet of 28 planes to deplete to 10 under their watch.

Again, the issue became more baffling considering that the airline which happened to be the largest in West Africa and was flying routes both within Nigeria and internationally suddenly ran into this financial suicide. Does it mean that it was not making money at all, or was it a case of diverting money made from the airline elsewhere?

It is therefore right for the new management to have appointed the KPMG, a group of financial experts to undertake a forensic and diagnostic audit of the finances of the airline to ascertain the true status of its finances and what went wrong.

Besides auditing the financial books of the embattled airline, there is no way the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the regulatory body for the country’s aviation sector would exonerate itself from this mess.

With the takeover of Arik Air coupled with the discovery of its huge indebtedness, the present management of the authority should at once vacate the seat for allowing the level of negligence to reach the roof top under its watch.

The NCAA has failed in its duty for if it had showed a little bit of competency in its oversight duties, it would have been able to know about all this rot and call the airline to order.

With the discovery by AMCON about the deep mess, it has become obvious that the NCAA was either not on ground or that it was aware but not competent to exert itself.

Therefore, it is doubtful if a regulatory body that failed to know or chose to ignore this mess would not end up throwing the sector into a bigger mess very soon.