We are prepared for regional operations but… BASL Boss

Mrs Tosan Duncan Odukoya is the Chief Operating Officer Murtala Mohammed Airport Terminal Two (MMA2), operated by Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL) says the terminal has the capacity to carry out regional flights and has satisfied the checklist.

But government has been foot dragging to give them the nod to commence operations ten years after facility installations. In this interview with CHUKWUEMEKE IWELUNMO, Odukoya also speaks on information management. Excerpts

There has been a clamour for regional operations through MMA2, you know this comes with some demands in terms of infrastructure. If you are given the nod, do you have the infrastructure to handle it?

You have asked me a major two-part question, it began with if you get the nod, yes and then it came back to the way of the infrastructure. Let me turn your question upside down and let me say without any shadow of doubt MMA2 was a brilliant project which began back in 2003 and got executed back in 2007 and we’ve been operating for 16 years.

Definitely I have said somewhere else that as a domestic terminal we are veterans, we’ve been working on this system trying to get passengers through and out and satisfied for many years.

However, back in 2014 and even from 2007 it was written, that no problem you people can work on regional. At that time I think maybe we talked to ourselves you know what; let’s master the faithful a little, let’s do a little, let’s master this then we can escalate.

But back in 2014 and unfortunately I have to say back because in another two weeks that is 10 solid years that we actually went out there to the authorities and said we are putting up our hands, we want to go regional.

They said, do you know if you want to go regional what it means? You must have Immigration, you must have Customs, you must have Port Health, you must have NDLEA, you must have more Police, and you must have more Aviation security. They gave us a long list; you have to have offices, you have to have boots, you have to have sections, and you have to separate this from that.

They gave us a full scale checklist of what it takes for an airport terminal to be deemed a regional, because the moment you go from domestic to regional, regional to international you are dealing with the skies of Nigeria, you are dealing with overflies out of the country, you are dealing with so much more than just within.

Sometimes we boast that we run a system that’s more than a lot of international airports because we run over 45 to 49, 53 sometimes flights a day. We run between 3,009 to 5,001 a day out and in, up to 10,000 sometimes.

We can see it happening and we know we have that capacity. But when it comes to going regional, a big thing happens. Madam, you and I have to bring our international passport out. We have to bring our international health certificate out. You know, all these things have to do with, do we have the ability?

I will say irrevocable yes. Unequivocally, we have it. But what it is, is that first part of your question. If you get the nod. Sometimes you and I, we’ve had children or nieces or nephews and they are now one and a half years old and they say they want to walk. And then we are holding them.

And then they are dragging their hands from us, no, no, no. And we are afraid. Or they want to ride a bicycle and we’ll give them the three-wheeler. And then they say, no, no, no, I want the two-wheeler.

It’s a difficult thing to let, as it were to let a baby go because you are worried, can they do it? Will they be able to? So we have been trying to convince the authorities that, let’s do it this way, okay? Let us begin with what I call the November 5. The November 5 is our beloved Nigerian registered carriers, N5. I told them, don’t be afraid.

Why don’t we do it this way? Let’s start with the N5 carriers who are already brave enough to hit the skies outside of Lagos and outside of Nigeria. These are our Nigerian registered carriers that carry regional flights. The reason I’m saying this is because it starts from somewhere.

Number two, we have our brother and our parent body, which is the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria that actually oversees a lot of our work, and we are just a terminal. And we told them, we consider you as the captain of this football pitch, let’s say. But there are times when one player is down, okay?

Yes. Now, if one player is down, we have been on the sidelines waiting, trained, ready, but you didn’t call us up. Sometimes they go there with 21 men. You only need 11 men, but sometimes you are down to 10 men for injury, or you are down to nine men because of injury or somebody was out. So what do you do? You call on your reservist.

We’ve been there waiting in the reserve for 10 years, ready. We can do it. So what can we do except to say, let’s go through what the regulatory bodies are looking for. Have we satisfied that checklist? Yes. Which other checklists have we satisfied? The biggest one we are coming back with is, it’s called the single hub system.

What does a single hub mean? It means that an airline that is maybe a Nigerian carrier who has their hub with one area, and that’s where they operate to Uyo, or they operate to Asaba, or they operate to Owerri, or Abuja, or the north, anywhere in Nigeria. We, the MMA2, has been the gateway to over 36 states for this time.

Now, they have to go to another part and then operate out there to maybe Monrovia, or Freetown, or Abidjan, or Accra. So now, put 50 workers there, put another 50 workers here, be shuttling them forwards and backwards. Okay, where do we put the internet system? Where should we put the machines?

And then they’re running two separate offices when they can run one. So that’s the hub, single hub. Okay. And what we are requesting is, why don’t we save money for our own? You see, I’ve always said, profit is equal to income, less cost. Simple and straightforward. Everybody learnt it in class two. But what we are trying to say is, if it is so difficult to get more and more income, let us save cost. We can still make it to the finish line.

Could delays and cancellations be attributed to passenger’s unruly behaviours at airports and how do you handle such?

It’s not fair to say they are unruly let’s be realistic; you know me and my passengers; my passengers they cannot do any bad in my eyes but at the same time when there’s a situation that leads to what I call frustration and fracas, when there is situation where they (the passengers) are not being communicated with properly, where there’s a situation where they are not being updated properly or a situation where they feel neglected; listen no passenger wants to get into an airplane that’s not safe or go to a destination that is not safe. Do you understand? So every passenger I’ve always said is reasonable to a point.

So what are we doing to de-escalate situations, what are we doing to manage conflict, what are we doing to negotiate, what are we doing to give them communication and a heads up?

That is what we have to ask ourselves because you know you saying that you cannot treat me like that but you are the same person saying to the customer it’s not my fault you know or giving them unreasonable information. So we again like I told you we worked from within.

We said to ourselves what are we doing about ensuring that the customer does not get to a point where he becomes unruly, nobody gets up from their house, leaves their house coming here in order to become unruly.

We saw a situation on the international scene just a few days ago with a sporting situation with football where the President of the whole football federation got onto the tarmac, I call it tarmac because I’m a tarmac person. He got out to the football pitch and there were some fracas, when he was interviewed he said I never went onto that football pitch with the intention to slap the referee.

Can you imagine? That was something that really helped me to understand where we are when it comes to how we are dealing with situations; what leads up to making a passenger unruly, that’s where we have to step in. Instead of trying to be reactive let us be proactive, that’s what we’ve got to do. So we’re doing a lot.

Again when it comes to what I said about the communication, we are working together with all the stakeholders, understanding the rules of all of them – the airlines, NCAA, the ticketing counter.

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Most times people feel the problems get escalated because airlines do not communicate properly and on time, what do you think?

These are institutions and organisations that are made up of a lot of people; a lot of lines of management, a lot of lines of communication and so it does take leadership to be able to work with what I have termed or what we call a cascade and an escalate situation and this is what we do now at MMA2.

Okay so it’s a two-way thing and it works hand in hand as leadership as the heads as the ones that are able to see the strategy of things as well as the tactical of it.

“We must cascade information downwards we must allow the guys on the field the operational guys we all know it even with governments and wars there are generals and there are foot soldiers and the foot soldiers are very important. Don’t under estimate the powers that the operational guys have and at the same time so if we are not giving them information what do we want them to do?”

It’s not fair if the big ‘oga’ knows that that airplane maybe it’s going to take two hours for it to get there; it’s going from maybe Asaba to Abuja, before it goes to Uyo, before it gets there, it’s not fair if you don’t tell your foot soldiers what’s going on. Now the same thing and there’s a big man he’s sitting in the office somewhere at the headquarters and the foot soldier does not tell him that master something seems to be wrong, we’re not getting the right information.

That is called escalate, so the guy is sitting there in his office thinking everything is going on fine and nobody has called him to say it looks like we’re having a problem here, nobody called him.

“So it is a two-way thing. You either escalate from the operational up through the tactical to be able to get to the strategy for them to be able to know what to do or you cascade from strategy through tactical down to operation. It has to happen, somebody has to make it happen that is what leadership should do. Leadership should have the humility as well as put away the pride to be able to say guys I think we have an issue what should we do about it, but it’s not really a culture we practice here.”

But it happens and it’s possible and it’s getting better and better. Some of the new airlines and even some of the old airlines are changing their ways. So they quickly communicate and then at the same time when there’s an issue on ground we think there’s an issue the guys who are at the operation; field guys, the guys on the tarmac, the guys at the air side, land side, checking counter, ticketing counter, ‘oga we have a problem, the systems are not working.

It looks like our slots are not going to work, it looks like this light is going to interrupt that flight.’ It’s just information and because it’s the safety and security of the passenger I propose and strongly recommend every stakeholder that has to do anything with aviation must practice that as a management tool.