Better days are ahead of Nigeria’s Aviation Handling Company Plc (NAHCO) as its new Group Managing Director, Mrs. Olatokunbo Fagbemi has rolled out her strategies to embrace to make the company continue to retain its 65 per cent market share in aviation ground handling business.
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Fagbemi, who said the company has rolled out the five-year strategic plan to strengthen its operations and reinforce its position at the handling company in Nigeria, declared that transformation has since begun under Fagbemi with the investment of N1.9billion in various handling equipment.
Addressing journalists at the weekend in Lagos, Fagbemi while hinting that the equipment would arrive by the end of first quarter of this year, added that by the end of the year, the company would have invested about N3.6 billion on equipment.
“What we are doing immediately is to ensure we refurbish what we have in terms of facilities. We will refresh them, to make them look better like our buildings, warehouses and all that. We will improve on all the processes within the system. That is all we are doing. On our people, I can’t tell you how much we are going to invest because we are also drawing up the peoples plan”, she declared.
Speaking on market share, Fagbemi while promising to maintain the huge market share and maintain leadership of the burgeoning market, used the opportunity to deny claims of animosity and unhealthy rivalry between it and a major competitor, saying healthy competition was good for the business.
Going down memory lane, Fagbemi said Nahco was set up by the foreign airlines, stressing that there was a service gap when it was set up by the foreign airlines.
In her words: “By that time, Nigeria Airways had Skypower Aviation Ground Handling Company and they handled Nigeria Airways and it was the leader in aviation business in Nigeria. On the other hand, there was a department in FAAN that did ground handling, so, the foreign airlines were not getting as much values. So, Sabena, British Airways, Lufthansa, KLM all of them formed that company.”
“They (foreign airlines) had 40 per cent, 60 per cent was for FAAN and that was how NAHCO started. Most of the people that came on the foreign side were going into ground handing. SAHCOL was set up strictly for Nigeria Airways. On the domestic, it was SAHCOL forte. If you cast your mind back, the airlines on the domestic route were doing self-handling. A more autonomous SAHCOL was a more business focused SAHCOL and trying to get businesses for itself”.
“As NAHCo was getting bigger, SAHCOL was also getting bigger. There is no doubt that customers have left from NAHCO to SAHCOL. Also you have customers leaving from SAHCOL to NAHCO. It is the basis of competitive environment. When you say it is animosity between the two, I don’t think so. It is issue of competition”, she added.
She took time to explain that her firm had no issues with Lufthansa which she described as one of her best clients, but added that the decision of the German airline to divest its shares from NAHco had no issues with the health of the company.
“Lufthansa in 2016 took that decision and leaving NAHCO was a corporate decision taken in 2016 that finally came into effect in 2018. In terms of what the decision does to our image, I don’t know how a decision that was taken in Frankfurt, UK, that was taken for every country should be an issue here if there is no mischief in telling that story or mischief in receiving that story. If Lufthansa had issues, they won’t be doing business with us”, she added
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