Key players oppose airlines’ desire to import aviation fuel

Mixed reactions have continued to trail the recent desire of the domestic airlines in the country to start importing aviation fuel, otherwise known as Jet A1 as a way of confronting the incessant increase in the price of the commodity which is negatively impact on their cost of productions.

Presently, a liter of the fuel that sold for N200 early this year has now skyrocketed to between N710 and N800 depending on the marketer and the airport of purchase.

The rise in the price of the commodity though not limited to Nigeria, but the situation has become worsened owing to the devalued Naira and unavailability of forex.

In his reaction, the managing director of BelujaneKonsults, Mr Chris Aligbe who said contrary to the position of the airline operators to start importing aviation fuel, the airline owners should rather consider partnering some major oil importers as a way of ameliorating the expensive fuel challenges.

Aligbe took the position based on what he termed the absence of needed infrastructure by the airlines to dabble into aviation fuel importation.

According to Aligbe “ I think what airlines should do is to choose one or two major importers and cooperate with them rather than setting up a system to import fuel. They don’t have the infrastructure and the knowledge for now to import fuel because it would mean setting up a company that has the capacity for that. So, they should corporate with existing companies and you can chose about two or three of them and work with them to get fuel and when you discuss, you can input and see how things work.”

Another key player, Captain Alex Nwuba, described the desire of the airline operators to start importing aviation fuel as a decision not completely thought through, saying; “the airlines could not do it better than the oil companies that have been doing it for decades. So that wasn’t completely thought through. For the airlines to take it up as a competitive project from the oil companies, they will fail ab initio.”

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Nwuba though agreed that there were other mechanisms available to the government itself to find fuel at cheaper sources that can be brought into the market to ameliorate the problem, but however said it was just a matter of having discussion around how the problems could be solved.

Aligbe used the opportunity of the conference to air his opinions on the ongoing preparations that will pave the way for the birth of a new national carrier, Nigerian Air describing the development as an excellent one.

While defending the announcement by the government to start the new airline with three wet leased aircraft, Aligbe said there was nothing wrong with leasing aircraft for the airline on a startup arrangement.

“I am happy that it has finally happened even though it would have been excellent if it was done months ago but it is better late than never. Most startups usually start with wet leasing particularly when you are still new and all the investors have not come in. It is when the investors come in and you have all the funds that you need that you begin to look at if you are going to take wet lease or dry lease. But it will give you some time to recruit and train people, that is why I anticipate that the wet lease is not going to be for long before all the interested groups and investors come in and determine what kind of aircraft that they would need, would it be Boeing or Airbus? It is then that you can determine the people that you are going to train because you would have to train according to the aircraft type.”

On how to resolve the ongoing scarcity of forex, he urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to identify and treat the Nigerian airline sub-sector as a major concern, saying; “unless they do that, realising that it is the most effective transportation that we have that will keep the engine of the economy going, until they come to that point and do what they should do, which is to buy the necessary forex for them to continue operating, we would still remain where we are. The immediate causes of the closure of these airlines is forex and fuel although some of them have remote causes for their failure.”