COVID-19: Ibom Air wants tax holiday for aviation industry

By Isaac Job

Management of Ibom Air has appealed to the federal government to grant tax waivers to cushion the negative effects of coronavirus that hit the Aviation sector of the economy.

Speaking to Daily Times correspondent at Ibom Airport in Uyo, General Manager Marketing and Communications, Mrs Aniekan Essien-Ette, said the tax holidays were necessary to reposition the aviation sector during the COVID-19 pandemic.

She also announced plans by Ibom Airline to fly from Enugu State immediately the federal ministry of Aviation reopens the nation’s airports.

“With the statistics of the aviation industry, we had good projections before COVID-19 set in.

We are about to surpass even our business projections. Whatever we are facing today is a global phenomenon.”

“We don’t have any form of palliative supporting the industry either from federal or state governments.

Our tax is very peculiar because whether you fly or not, statutory taxes and maintenance must be done.

I can tell you that the airline is more profitable when our aircraft are flying because when you park, it that means you almost double the maintenance costs and when you eventually fly you must be certified fit to do so by regulatory authorities.”

She noted that when government shows some level of understanding and demonstrates some care for the industry, it would help them to stay afloat in the business. “One of our unique selling points has been our time reliability.

We tell you we are going to depart at a certain time and we ensure that at the dot of that time, we are already taxiing away.

So what that has done is to put some level of accountability on the part of the travelling public,” she said.

Essien-Ette who disclosed plans by the airline to expand to other towns and cities in the country “as soon as more airports are given the green light to do so,” said it would rather leave a customer than miss the timing.

“So we tell our public as we resume from the COVID-19 lockdown, based on the protocol and the rules, you need to be at the airport in good enough time. You check in and board at the appropriate time.

We have kept our promise to our customers, which is to give them the kind of services that they have been yearning for.

“We are just enjoying a month of airport reopening.

There has been a bit of travel apathy knowing that the age demographic of travelers cut across certain ages. Some people have been ascribed as the most vulnerable.

Some people have become reserved when making travelling decisions.

It has been slow but it is slowly coming up.

There hasn’t been a decline. “When we started, it was difficult to get the plane full, but slowly and surely, it is coming up and we are hoping that as more locations open up across the world, it would affect travelling locally as well, she said.

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Essien-Ette who praised the Akwa Ibom government for the vision of establishing the airline maintained that the day-to-day running of the company is being handled by professionals without any interference by the government.

“You need to give it to the Akwa Ibom government.

It had a vision to own an airline and it did. However, they have totally left the running of the airline to professionals.

Ibom Air is being run like any other self-respected business without any form of interference from the government.

The government set the platform for it to run, however, the day-to-day running of the airline has nothing to do with the government of the day.