Nigeria still a virgin market — NCAA DG

The Director-General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Captain Musa Nuhu has described the Nigerian market as virgin market yet to be maximally explored.

During an interactive session with some aviation journalists at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, the NCAA DG attributed his position to the fact that out of nine million Nigerians that travel within the country, just about one million travel regularly by air.

Reacting to the notion that while airlines in other climes are shutting down because of the negative impact of COVID-19, reverse has been the case in Nigeria where new airlines are springing up, Nuhu attributed this to the state of bad roads across the country which has left many Nigerians with no other choice but to travel by air.

“Unfortunately, because of the condition of the roads, a lot of people prefer flying by air. So, the demand is growing and that is why you see many airlines growing. I can tell you that out of the nine million that are said to be travelling within Nigeria, only probably one million people are flying regularly.

“So, maybe only one or two million people travel in Nigeria, in a population of 200 million. It is still a virgin market. If we uphold our policies and strategies, we will make a friendly-environment in the industry and it will grow. That is why in the Ministry and with aviation roadmap, they want to do things like aircraft leasing company, MROs which are some of the things that make maintenance cost.

You know airlines go to Europe for maintenance, but when we have am MRO, it creates employment and you just rolled in your aircraft and do your maintenance in there in naira.

“What is the population of Nigeria? How many passengers travel domestically before COVID-19? What percentage of Nigeria is that? If it is six or five per cent of the Nigerian population that tells you that Nigeria is under-travelled. There is a huge market there. Nigerian market is not mature enough. There is a huge opportunity there for the Nigerian market to grow. That is why you see that many airlines are coming up in the country. We have Green Africa Airways, NG Eagle and so many other airlines coming up. I am sure that Green Africa Airways, NG Eagle are the next to fly. The market is there. It is economics.”

The NCAA DG while using the opportunity to speak on the efforts being made by the government to develop the General Aviation in Nigeria described the component as the basis of any successful aviation sector.

“Honestly, when you talk about general aviation, you touched something that is close to my heart. General aviation is the basis of any successful aviation industry.

Successful aviation industry in any country has a good General Aviation. It provides the people the basis such as experienced pilots; airlines provide experienced management staff and engineers. So, when the airlines employ them, it costs them less to train them because they already have some level of experience not direct from flying school.

“As regards the promotion of general aviation policy, we have the Civil Aviation Act before the National Assembly. Hopefully, it will be passed very soon and passed into law. So, once that is done, and we know what the new NCAA mandate is, we will do a stakeholders meeting for review of our regulations. I think we need to de-clutter and unbundle our regulations so that the requirements from general aviation is different from the requirements of the airlines. They are not the same risk. So, we need to unbundle those regulations, General Aviation could be Chartered flights, agric. spraying, small tourism aircraft, ambulance and others.

“There are so many areas of general aviation, but right now, regulations are bundled, somebody flying corporate and small plane carrying 10 people and you are asking for the same requirements from a Boeing 777 going to Dubai. It doesn’t make sense. So, when we unbundle those regulations, we believe it is going to stimulate the general aviation part of the industry. And when that is done, all these excess pilots and the people that don’t have jobs will be absorbed. They will get experienced and move on to the bigger airline industry. General Aviation is very critical.”

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