Yemie Adeoye
19 July 2008
interview
Lagos — ALEX Van Elk is the Managing Director and chief Executive Officer of Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited, the owners of the Murtala Muhammed Airport2 (MMA2) in Lagos. In this interview with Saturday Vanguard he spoke on issues affecting the aviation sector . He also spoke on the efforts of his company to offer world-class service to Nigerians, in all airports across the country. Enjoy it:
As a stakeholder in the aviation sector, how do you assess the sector so far taking into cognisance the recent efforts at restructuring which is still on-going at the moment?
Speaking from the past years that I've been in Nigeria and from the time before that which I've read in the papers there's been quite a lot of changes in the country. If you look at the aviation sector, first the airline part the safety issue is something which is being addressed by the former government and also being addressed by the present government and in that respect I think bodies like the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) is doing a very good job and we all know that they have invited IATA to do audit as well as ICAO we are now working on the safety audit of the airport.|
These are all things that are an incentive for all the airport operators to do the very best possible to make the aviation sector more safe in Nigeria.
Now if you look at the airlines themselves they have improved safety a great deal because they have to be looking at high rate companies like Lufthansa techniques for maintenance, looking at standards in engineers they hire, I think that's something already done very well.
The other part is the airport.
We can see that the government has set a very good approach when it comes to air navigation. It is something that we have to improve on and is improving and there is funding for that as well.
A lot has been going in terms of improving navigation equipment , same goes for the infrastructures of the airports themselves, looking at runways, taxiways and terminals, they are really working to get things better.
Of course, our airports as the first privileged private partnership is I can say, slightly above the rest available here in Nigeria, and many African countries, and that clearly shows that to improve aviation, you don't have to fund it alone as a government, because in my own opinion, the government can spend the resources they have much better on road infrastructure, on housing, on education, etc. Those are the things that are done by government.
If you look at airports, there are many airports operators and many airport companies who are operating airports throughout the world. So you see what we've been doing here. We are working with our team because it is a commercial operation to keep it up to the standards we want to have and that which would benefit the aviation sector. So we are keen as Bi-Courtney aviation to develop more air terminals or operate more airports in Nigeria and outside the country.
As it is now, do you think it is possible to have the likes of MMA2 project scattered around the country? And would it be possible to turn other airports around to look like MMA2?
Well, if you look at it from the architectural point of view, they don't have to be the same. One thing of being a wise master of your house is "don't build too big". So what you should do when operating an airport is to first make a master plan. See what the traffic flow is. What is the traffic flow? How many passengers do you have now?
How many passengers do you expect in the coming years? Don't just look at IATA figures, but look at specifically, the Nigerian situation, whether there is a relatively low infrastructure, whether there is still safety issue that drags people into planes? So aviation sector here grooms more than any other countries, so you have to go more than the IATA figures. Now, if you plan the airports, you look at what it is now and what you should expect.
We have the terminal here with the capacity of between four and half million passengers -a figure too small in airport like Warri or Port Harcourt. You don't need to make a huge terminal there. You make a terminal that has the quality standards. A quality standard doesn't mean it should be big.
It means that the facilities there is well maintained and has right management to operate it in the proper way. And an airport can be so commercial to earn money, so that is what I thought about it. The building should not be duplicated, but its concept should be duplicated.
That's a different thing. The building is nice, but I have seen other buildings that are nice but of a completely different shape. So the biggest mistake we can make is to say that we did this here in this airport and did the same thing somewhere else, we cannot do that.
You have to look at it from project to project and look at the needs. The shapes can be different, but the mistake to make is to build it too big, because it is an investment, talking about public private partnership. Nobody wants to spend money without a return on investment. So you have to look at the situations.
What is your stake on the relocation of all airlines from the international terminal of Murtala Muhammed Airport to the local wing to which some notable airlines have objected?
Essentially, we don't have issues with Virgin Nigeria.
The issue with Virgin Nigeria started when the airline said that our airport was not safe. But the main issue is that we have 36 years concession agreement with the government stating that all airlines should operate from this terminal. So our issue is with effect that the government is not living up to what they should do. So they should direct Virgin and Arik to move into the terminal which they have not been doing. They did it and Virgin stayed out. There was court injunction, which was for security reasons, there was a strict order that they move out.
Now, that can make you wonder why a court injunction can go over the national security issue. This is something we don't understand. If you go to Arik, on that part, Arik obeyed and left but they moved to the old terminal, GAT to operate from there.
Yes, they left the international airport, but they are still in the wrong terminal. Their planes can be there, that's no problem because we had an agreement with the government that they can use the GAT which is still good. What we are saying is that Arik could have their aircraft there but process their passengers into this first class facilities.
We have 30% of our capacity being used here.
That is the major problem because we have our tenants, we have the restaurants, we have the handling agents, and everybody is here based on the assumption in line with the contract that all the airlines would be here.
So our tenants are complaining, where is the traffic, where is our customers? I have to pay a rent here for the building, for an office, for shop, and I don't get the passengers that I expect. So that's the problem of the government not living up to their contractual duties. They should. So it goes beyond airlines just moving. They are realy damaging the business here in this airport.
What tangible reason have they given for not moving down to MMA2?
To start with Virgin Nigeria, said they have a MoU with the government that they are allowed to operate from the international terminal. We have seen this MoU and the content is questionable.
I don't want to go into it because it's in court now, but the content is questionable. Virgin also said that they cannot move because they want to create a hub.
That is giving the public the wrong information. Creating a hub has nothing to do with the terminal; it has to do with the airport that has hubs with separate terminals with transfer within the terminals.
One thing I can tell you is that since last Monday we have an air site transfer between the international terminal and our terminal which has been arranged now, paid by us. So you can see what we are doing to get the airlines move to our airport and to let us use the GAT.
We even created a temporary apron.
We created a safest road between our terminal and the GAT terminal, the air site, to take passengers by buses to the terminal.
We bought four brand new buses costing about $2m to transfer the passengers. The reason Arik is not moving is that the chairman of Arik has a blue print that he wants his own terminal. He said this is monopoly and he doesn't see in any way he could not build his own terminal.
This is very wrong. There are many airports that have certain airlines in the terminal but they don't own the terminal. Am not saying that if we are developing further, we would not give Arik and Virgin Nigeria their own separate part of the terminal.
That can happen. But you cannot say that everybody can build his own terminal, because that can destroy business. By giving Arik their own terminal the government cannot stabilize their contract with us, because they have contract that we are the only operator.
Now, if you have contract with two parties, the most stupid thing you could do is to make another contract, jeopardizing the contract between the two. And that is what is going on at the moment.
So what is Bi-Courtney doing to address this issue?
Well, we have addressed this issue in quite a number of times with the government, with the ministry of transport, with the MD of FAAN. And so far, they said they would find a solution. And that is a very weak point of view because there is only one solution that is the clear directive that Arik and Virgin moves into this terminal.
There will never be a solution between Arik and Bi-Courtney because Arik do not have the intention to move. Arik even threatened to leave Nigeria and Lagos if they are forced to move. They claim they are patriots and they are doing this for the country. Now how far did the patriots go when you are told to go to a terminal and you say you would leave the country? It is not real.
As an expert in the industry, what do you think can be done to checkmate the series of air crashes which has bedeviled the country in recent past and what has been the cause
The funny thing is that everybody is always talking about safety and maintenance of the aircraft, but if you look at the past two major crashes, Sosoliso, Bellview and ADC, as far as I know, it was not caused by aircraft malfunction. They have been caused by infrastructure problems. If you look at Sosoliso, it has to do with the runway.
If you look at Bellview and ADC, they hit the thunderstorm. A lot of this has to do with the cockpit management.
If you have pilots in the cockpit and the captain is under pressure from the company to get home in time, because the aircraft would be used for the next flight, and you have the junior co-pilot, and the pressure is so big on the captain because he overrules everything, that is the basis to get problem in the cockpit and I have seen that before many years ago in many airlines.
That is why cockpit resource management is so important to train pilot on how to act in the cockpit. That means that the team should work together. So if one person said that there is a thunderstorm at the end of a runway, and the other person objects to this, there is bound to be problem in the cockpit. Aviation depends on team work. It has to be a team work.
So the pilot in the cockpit should act on team work. Therefore, what can be done to the crashes in the future is that you should improve infrastructure, like runways that they don't get slippery, that the water should be removed in time, that they should fence the airport.
You can also train pilots in the cockpit. Keep to licensing of your engineers. And also train new engineers, look at your navigation equipment and maintain it. Get expertise from abroad if you are not an expert, keep to the standards. That's the only way Nigeria can be a category one country for flights to the US .
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Vanguard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
