How Nigeria should exploit the ongoing turmoil in the aviation industry

Ayo Akinfe

(1) We should approach aircraft manufacturers Boeing, Airbus, Embraer and Bombadier telling them that the Ecowas block will sign a 10-year exclusive supply deal with any of them that opens a plant in Nigeria

(2) Nigeria will be the location for any main manufacturing plant opened by any of these companies but each of the other 14 Ecowas nations will be home to at least one component supplier. Our lower labour costs should allow the aircraft manufacture to produce commercial planes at about 10% cheaper than elsewhere, allowing Ecowas member states to upgrade the fleets of their national carriers

(3) We should invite any willing international airline to enter into a joint venture with Air Peace to create a Nigerian national carrier. Our goal should be for it to account for about 50% of the African aviation market by 2030

(4) Calabar Airport should be designated as the gateway to east and central Africa. Airlines should be encouraged to fly from there to everywhere from Cameroon to South Africa. Calabar’s location makes this ideal and airlines like Ibom Air and Air Cally should focus on this niche market

(5) Our new national carrier should be given a mandate to make Abuja Africa’s primary air hub. Flight packages should include inter-connecting flights to any part of Africa without having to go through baggage reclaim. Fir instance, we should offer London-Lagos-Nairobi and New York-Abuja-Dar es Salam packages

(6) Lagos airport should be linked by rail to every state capital in Nigeria. Basically, we want something similar to the Gatwick Express where you can get to the airport via a high speed rail link within two hours from any part of Nigeria

(7) All our smaller airports in places like Benin, Kano, Kaduna, Jos, Akure, Enugu, Uyo, Maiduguri, Owerri, etc should be encouraged to open up links with other West African nations. Airlines should be offered tax rebates for flying from Kaduna to Accra of from Benin to Lomé for instance

(8) With airlines going for cheap at the moment as they count the cost of Covid-19, Nigeria should use the opportunity to establish a new Africa-Asia non-stop service

(9) Given Africa’s unique location in the centre of the world and Nigeria being nearly in the centre of Africa, we should sell Abuja as the epicentre of global aviation. This should involve building a global airport village with all the accompanying tourist facilities. The goal is to sell Abuja as a major overnight stopover point

(10) We should look to attract manufacturers in niche sectors such as private jets, military planes, helicopters, etc