KEY players across the country’s aviation sector have unanimously agreed that Nigeria needs a civil aviation infrastructure and capability that will support a $13 trillion economy that is projected to become one of the largest populations on earth, with a demonstrated propensity to travel by air by 2050.
In view of the obvious reasons, the key players have called for a total overhaul of the aviation industry to support the projected economic growth and to be repositioned as a leading aviation economy.
At the end of the conference held in Lagos courtesy of Aviation Round Table (ART), the key players cut across the airlines, the aviation agencies and other relevant businesses equally called for the review of the Air Operators’ Certificates (AOCs) Renewal regime and processes to encourage more investors
The participants challenged the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority to rapidly enhance its regulatory obligations by digitalising and automating end-to-end their safety and economic regulatory processes in line with global trends and best practices.
According to the stakeholders, the regulatory body should ensure that the entire aviation ecosystem is cyber safe and cyber secure to forestall potential cyber-attacks which are a global scourge to every industry and most critical to industries like aviation.
At the end of the event, it was generally agreed that the present government of President Bola Tinubu must take advantage of Nigeria’s population with its travelling culture by giving the sector the priority required to enhance employment and government revenue while expanding its GDP contribution via trade, investment, and tourism.
The participants agreed that a civil aviation master plan in line with current aviation realities be developed for Nigeria as the last one developed has remained a draft civil aviation document.
The Tinubu-led government was also tasked to take specific steps to enhance the growth of aviation in Nigeria for the benefit of the economy, and recognise the utility and necessity for air travel, while ensuring that no region or state is left out of the benefit of air travel, by designating aviation as an essential service and some airports as essential airports and ensuring that incentives are provided to air carriers to provide air service to these designated airports in the public good.
In order to protect the interest of Nigeria and its airlines, the gathering emphasised the need for the review of the existing Bilateral Air Service Agreements (BASAs) with the commercial agreements and enforce the reciprocity principle in international agreements, while deliberate efforts should be made to secure government support for local airline operators particularly in BASA implementation to enable them to attain their full potential.
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