NCAA should not generate funds for FG- Capt Sanusi, MD, Aero Contractors

Captain Ado Sanusi, Managing Director of Aero Contractors, a soft spoken airline pilot, an astute administrator, who turned around the ailing oldest commercial airline in the country for better, in this interview with Aviation Editor, Chukwuemeke Iwelunmo, speaks on critical issues militating against the growth of the aviation industry. Excerpts:

Since you came back as Managing Director of Aero Contractors, what are those things you have been able to introduce to reposition the airline?

I came back almost a year and a few months ago. First, I came into Aero Contractors in 2017 and then left after the COVID-19 for another project. And then came back in August 2022. We came and inherited a company that had no airplanes and had not paid salary for about eight months. It was literally closed down.

And they had suspended their commercial operations and suspended their AOC. So we started a company from that. Trying first to get the AOC back and then to try and put some aircraft into operation. And that was what we did. By special grace, we came in 2022 October.

We got our AOC back in December and started flying 5th of December 2022. And we did just a year, 5th of December last year; we did a year of flying. We have done a lot. We have moved from zero aircraft to four airplanes now. We have two 737 that we leased from Cross River State Government.

And we have our own Dash 8 – 300. We have helicopter flying. So we have four airplanes. We have two aircraft that we are undergoing C-check. One is in Abuja, we are going to ferry it hopefully by middle of February.

And the other one is undergoing C – check as you can see. So we will be making close to six airplanes towards the middle of the year. Our aim is to bring back Aero Contractors to where it is supposed to be.

Our aim is to ensure that Aero Contractors comes out of receivership. And we believe we are on the route. Yes, we believe we have brought the airline out from distress. We also have stabilized operations. We have, since we came, we have been paying salaries as at when due.

We have started even looking at the backlog of salaries. And we intend to complete all the backlog before the third quarter of this year. And we also have renewed our MRO certification. We are booked throughout the year for the MRO. So we have MAX Air, we have Air Peace, we have Allied Air. We have so many.

There is none of the operators that don’t come to us for maintenance. And we do understand that the country is lacking maintenance, repair, and overhaul. But I believe we should recognize what we have as a country.

The former president, President Mohammadu Buhari, in one of his speeches of his achievement of his administration, said a check, heavy check was done in this country. I believe the Ministry of Aviation should investigate which airline or which company did that. It’s Aero Contractors. Aero Contractors is owned 60 percent by the government.

So I don’t know why they should not invest in the maintenance. They should look towards that angle. You cannot create a maintenance organization in Greenfield and expect results immediately. We have a structure that has been there for over 60 years. And I believe the government should look into the direction. Even though it is small, but you start small.

Even though it is partly owned private, but 60 percent is owned by government. And I believe the PPP, private partnership, is something that the government wants. So I think this is a good test bed for the government to show what they can do on this issue of maintenance, overhaul and repair.

It is very, I wouldn’t say disheartening, but sometimes it is very, I don’t want to use the word disheartening, it is not good for us to hear that the government is looking for ways to create a maintenance or repair when there is already one on the ground. So we need to build on it.

At least build on it or at least kill it. You have to do one of the two and you own 60 percent of it. So you own 60 percent and you are still looking at something different. So you either remove your 60 percent, let it go, create what you want to create or at least see what this entity can do. I don’t think we should waive Aero Contractors’ maintenance history away.

When I came in 2017, I saw that they have a very good potential to build upon. They were not doing the heavy maintenance on 737, but we built upon that. We did the first C- check in Western Central Africa on 737 Classics.

In fact, we did the C-check on 737 after Nigeria Airways. Nigeria Airways never did 737 checks on third parties. They did it on their own airplanes. But we did that for third parties. We did it for airplanes. We did it for third parties. I think it is something to be celebrated.

Let’s look at government policies, airport facilities. Recently, NCAA came up with an agenda 2024 to simplify licensing and some other things. How will all these help to lift your dream?

In every organization or in every company, the environment where you operate in matters. It matters for your growth. And especially for us, which is a company under stress, under distress, we’re trying to stabilize the environment where we operate. It matters a lot. So it’s a welcome development. Any simplification of licensing, any simplification of getting AOC or renewal of AOC or getting, Certificate of Airworthiness of an airplane, it’s all a welcome idea.

I believe that the parastatals were were created to ease doing business with the Ministry of Aviation. And I believe that the parastatals should always strive to be innovative, to make things easy. The world is doing that. The world is making it easy for you to make payments. The world is making it easy for you to buy things from anywhere in the world. So why wouldn’t you make it easy for a company to do business in that environment it is doing business? That’s what the world is all about.

Talking about payments, just recently there’s this policy of no pay, no flight by the NCAA because the airlines owe them huge debt from PSC and TSC. How do you see this decision that the NCAA has come up with?

This has been a very vicious cycle. I have been involved when I was on the other side, when I was the MD of NAMA, saying that we will not give startup for airlines that have not paid. And now I’m running an airline and it’s quite interesting. But I think what is very important and what I pray that the minister should do is take the bull by the horn and address this situation.

It was only done once. And unfortunately it wasn’t done to a logical conclusion. Done once in my lifetime, in 30 years that I’ve been in aviation, where we want to actually find out what is the indebtedness of the airlines to the parastatals. And then we want to have a clean start. We want to say, look, we can’t continue to tax the airlines. The airlines are struggling.

The parastatals are struggling. It’s a vicious cycle.

So you say no pay, no services. So what you want is the airlines to die. Because I now know that what I was doing when I was in NAMA was killing the airlines, actually. If I say I will not give you startup till you pay me, I’m actually killing them.

Okay, now if I look at also on the other side, the parastatals can’t survive. So that means it’s a vicious cycle. There must be something to break it. And the parastatals, as I keep saying it, cannot survive with the taxation from the airlines. So we must unbundle.

We must, and I call on the Honourable Minister, this, if he does this, this will definitely help the aviation industry. We must look at this cycle that we are doing. The airlines cannot pay for the running of the parastatals. It’s not possible. My take is commercialize NAMA, as is done in all other countries.

NAMA is purely on cost recovery. Just like the NCAA. Yes, NAMA is only on cost recovery. Commercialize it, let it be on cost recovery, and let the board of NAMA decide, with of course, the airlines, and then, of course, with the approval of the NCAA, decide the charges.

And each year, the board looks at the revenue they’ve created, and see whether they have generated enough revenue to cover the cost. And if they have, then the charges should be lower, and they make sure it’s always, the costs have been covered by the revenue generated.

That’s purely commercializing NAMA. Now when you talk of NCAA, NCAA cannot be funded by the airlines. It can’t, it’s not possible. The reason being that if you say that I pay, as an airline, I pay for an inspector to go and inspect an airplane; I pay for his feeding, I pay for his first class ticket, I pay for his hotel, and then he goes and inspect the airplane. Do you think he will fail the airplane? No, of course not.

He can’t. So it’s better that we look for another source of funding for NCAA. But we should, we’re not saying that it should not be, we should not pay for the safety oversight. Yes, it should be attached for safety oversight. But NCAA should be funded separately. And it should be funded well. It should be funded in such a way that it can attract the best hands in the industry to come and work there.

Now if you can pay a footballer a very huge amount of money to play for your country, to score a goal, why can’t you pay an inspector that will save a life the good money that he will do?

If you can pay a foreign coach to come and coach your team to win the World Cup, why can’t you pay the Civil Aviation Authority good money to bring good people so that they can save lives, avoid accidents, and have a strong Civil Aviation Authority and a vibrant aviation industry in general?

Because the moment you have a respected Civil Aviation Authority worldwide, then your aviation industry will be vibrant because people will bring their airplanes, people know that we’ll maintain them, continuous airworthiness is guaranteed, your second-hand value of aircrafts that are registered in Nigeria will not fall, your insurance premium will go down, and everything will fall in place, and you will see that even people to come and invest in built-in airports will come, people to invest in.

The airlines will come, but we have always been doing the same thing and expecting different results. We are now saying no pay, no service. And we expect the airlines to be vibrant again in the next four or five years. It’s not possible.

From what you have said, would you say the idea of this no pay, no service, will not work?

First of all, I don’t think we should continue to work on 5% ticket sales charge. I don’t think we should. And this is my reason. Airline A decides to pay, the airline A flies Lagos, Abuja. Airline B flies Lagos, Abuja. Airline A decides to put his ticket at 60,000 Naira to Abuja. Airline B decides to put his ticket, same, at 100,000 Naira. 5% of 60 is definitely smaller than 5% of 100. And the safety oversight for airline A and the safety oversight for airline B is the same.

But one is paying higher. So that means that it’s wrong. There’s something wrong when you’re paying a higher percentage. So I believe we should have a percentage of payment. So it’s Lagos, Abuja, that’s what it is, 1,000, 2,000 or whatever it is, 1,000 Naira for all across board. That’s one.

Two, Nigeria I think is among the few countries that think NCAA should generate funds for the federal government. NCAA should not generate funds for the federal government. NCAA is not NPA. No. They are doing safety oversight. They are cost recovery people, in fact, not even cost recovery.

The government should pay money to the NCAA so that they can ensure that safety is done to the best, and to make sure that the aviation industry is well run. Because I’m thinking, if you say CBN, the banks should pay for CBN to survive. Do you think it will be okay?

You see, what I think should happen is that the federal government should pay, should have another source of funding for NCAA. They should be removed totally. And they should have a total funding separately. Transport Canada has a total separate funding. It’s not that it’s funded by the allies.

Because if you look at it this way; it is an organization that has safety oversight. It is creating a safe environment for flying. And you’re saying the airlines should pay for that. And you expect to get a vibrant aviation industry. I don’t think it is possible. Well, it has not worked. We can see it has not worked. So we should change it, even without anybody saying it. It has not worked, so we should change it. We should do something different.

Are you saying in a way that the NCAA should not even get a dime?

No, I didn’t say that. I said the NCAA should get money, but not 5%. They should change the 5% because that 5% is not fair. The checks, the license, everything should be paid. But what I’m saying is these payments should not be the revenue that will run the agency. No, it’s not possible.

If I have an inspector, let’s say a flight inspector, let’s say a pilot, you are paying him, let’s say, I don’t know what they pay in NCAA, but you are paying him on grade level. Maybe it’s on grade level. I don’t know. Maybe they do that. And probably he earns maybe, I don’t know, maybe N700,000 per month.

A pilot in airline earns about N4 million. That’s almost four times what the inspector is earning. So how would you get the best to come and inspect? So you get the worst to inspect the best. But that’s the truth. So you either wait for people to retire, and you don’t have 100% of output, and then you make them inspectors, or you increase the salary to be at least a par with those that they are going to be inspecting. Then you get people. But we do that in football. I wonder why we cannot do it in aviation. I don’t know why. So when you say that no pay, no services, it’s another misfortune for the airline.

On the issue of passenger compensation during delays and cancellation, the minister said very soon airlines will start paying passengers for delays and cancellations. What is your take on it?

Well, I’ve said it. It’s a very good initiative. Airlines should take responsibility when they delay flights, when they, but again, infrastructure might cause the delay. So who pays the delay? If I was supposed to go to Asaba and NiMet supposed to give me weather, my flight is seven o’clock and NiMet said they are opening at eight o’clock and I cannot dispatch the airplane till I get the weather.

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So I will wait till eight for them to give me the weather. Eight, they will come to the office. Probably I’ll get the weather at 8.30. So that’s one hour, 30 minutes delay. So who pays for that delay? Now, it’s reactionary because that flight was delayed. So my Abuja flight will be delayed for one hour, 30 minutes. My Kano flight might be delayed for two hours. My other flights might be delayed for two and a half hours.

Or I was supposed to be pushed back at MM2. And then there are about three airplanes that, that their departure time, it’s much later and I am parked inside. So I have to wait for them to move out sometimes two hours. Who pays for that delay? Or I’m at the GAT where we have three, four airlines going at seven o’clock and we have only one x-ray machine working and there’s congestion.

And my passengers, the last passenger, because all of them checked in but not all are processed. So my last passenger came in an hour and a half late because of the congestion at the gate. Who pays for that delay?

So I think it’s a good idea to say that the airlines should take responsibility. But also the parastatal should take responsibility for their delays. And everybody should take responsibility for their delays and pay the passenger.

The passenger should be well compensated for delays. Or what we should do is get the insurance involved. If there’s delay, insurance should pay for delays. It’s true. Somebody must pay the passengers. But in a country where we have so many challenges, I think we should be careful as we implement this compensation.

It is good to compensate. It makes the airlines to stand on their toes. But remember, no airline in the world would like to delay its flight. Because what we sell is speed. So we don’t want to delay.