The improvement recorded in Nigeria’s air safety record in the past seven years has drastically reduced the exorbitant insurance premiums the domestic airline operators used to pay on aircraft operating in the country.
Attesting to this development, the Commissioner for Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), Mr Akin Olateru revealed how, due to the impressive air safety records, the insurance premiums on wide-body aircraft that used to attract $800,000 a year have dropped to between $150,000 to $200,000.
The AIB Commissioner disclosed this in his welcome address when the two chairmen at the senate and house of representatives committee on aviation, Senator Abiodun Olujimi and Honourable Nnolim Nnaji paid an oversight working visit to the Bureau and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) to put enormous pressure on the existing aviation infrastructures which required that more investments should be made in the sector.
The lawmakers stressed that members were impressed that for the past seven years now, the country had not recorded any fatalities apart from the helicopter accident which occurred at Opebi in Lagos in early 2022.
He also informed the two committees of the National Assembly that the Bureau had set the pace in air safety in Africa by establishing the first training institution for accident investigators on the continent.
While the National Assembly joint committees on aviation emphasized the need for adequate funding of the sector to enable it to cope with the increase in demands for air travel, the two chairmen pledged to look into the alleged exclusion of NAMA in the 2023 Federal Budget to see what could be done to redress it.
In his welcome address the Managing Director of NAMA, Mr Mathew Lawrence Pwajok appreciated the committees of both Chambers of the National Assembly for their interest and concerns on matters affecting the aviation industry.
He acknowledged their swift passage of the six Executive Bills on the industry as a true reflection of their commitment to the progress of the air transport sector in the country.