By Jimoh Babatunde with agency reports
Having spent more than two decades in the banking industry, Mr. Kayode Ojo, takes to Nigerian Aviation Handling Company PLC (Nahco Aviance) wealth of experience that will help position the business of the company that is now a  fully privatized public concern owned by more than 80,000 individual shareholders, three foreign airlines and Rosehill Group Nigeria Limited.

Kayode Ojo

In this interview conducted by Jimoh Babatunde and Daniel Eteghe, the economist, a professional accountant talks on plans to reposition the company in the core area of aviation handling and other aviation matters.

Here is an excerpt.

On the state of Nacho finance when he took over

To be  honest, Nahco is a buoyant institution and I say this with every sense of modesty because two and  half years ago, I never thought I will work here, it is an institution in which I had interest because finance is their business.

Now,  the company is thirty something years, but in another light we can say that the company is five years old.

Why do I say that? , It is because of the pre_privatization era and a post privatization era. But in all the eras, here is a company that has not made any lost, that is very important and I want to especially speak on the post privatization era.

The company has made profit consistently, in fact last year, that was 2009 we paid an interim  and a final and in 2010 we already paid our interim and I am such if you read newspapers, you will see the declaration of the final result. So, I  will say that it is a growing company in an industry that is international in nature and as far as the saying goes for its’ investors, the company is doing  good work,  in fact it is a very huge work.

On areas of improvement being looked at
Sometimes last year, we started a transformation program, it was first initiated by the board, because it is the board that gives direction and the management picks up policy and implement.

We are looking at key areas such as increasing the efficiency, improving the quality of the service,  because we are a service company and then of course enhancing our equipment base as well as human capital.

Sincerely speaking, we are thinking  along these four lines and that is because Nahco is not a manufacturing company, we provide services, so we must ensure that there is an efficient delivery of the service.

We  know that the service is delivered  on a platform of equipments and people, it is because like I mentioned earlier we are operating an international industry.

I will use this opportunity to say that we recently got an award which emphasized that the company operates  solely on a globally acceptable basis. We won the ISAGO award of ground handling company, the award was  the first of its kind in West Africa and it is the first in less than 10 locations in Africa as a whole.

It is a certification that lasts for two years which means that you will be re-certified again and it is important for us that we keep improving  and re skilled so that when the re-certification comes we can qualify.

On  training of personnel

Now for us,  what we have done in the last two years is to invest heavily in new ground support equipments close to $8million  and as I speak, we have approval also to invest and commit close to another $2million  in the coming months to make sure that we have state of the arts up graded equipment brown new of course.

So,  like I mentioned earlier, the plane landing in Paris, and other parts of the world even in Nigeria is the same plane, there is no standard that differs, we are in aviation and the standards are expected to be the same of course, we are getting the equipment from the ground support industry, we believe that will significantly assist us to take our business  to that level that we want it to be.

On when to expect the equipment

In the coming months, we see them coming in this year definitely, and the reason for that is very obvious, it is not like a television that you can buy officially, you have to place an order, you know there is a lot of economics that goes along with it, they  manufacture based on the commitment on ground, the signing of the agreement with the people and other things around it, it takes enough time to be delivered after you have placed your order.

On the ground handling business in Nigeria

One, We are one of the ground handling companies in Nigeria and we have just got an international certification, fortunately we did not set the standard by ourselves, it was set by the International Air Transport Association (IATA),  so if they gave us a pass mark and  I think that answers the question whether we are operating on an international standard.

Secondly, we have quit a few major international carriers coming into Nigeria and you know safety is a very key issue in this industry,  if we did not think that we have it,  the way it ought to be, I am not sure that they will be flying in here.

Last reason, which is very important, is that the Ministry of Aviation through the efforts of NCAA has got CAT1 status for Nigeria that has  helped  Nigeria, you can’t arrange it, it is either you have it or you don’t have it, so based on those precepts, I would say that the industry is operating at a standard that is worth commending to what is expected globally.

On the safety of the airport environment for ground handling operations

What we are saying is that in as much as the Direct Data Capture (DDC)  incident occurred  last year, I want to also let you know that a similar thing has happened in the developed market relating to cargo.

The fact of the  matter is that for some time the focus has been on passengers security  and all the rest, but cargo security has not really attracted the same, definitely that has changed and I spoke recently about the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), you know they are our regulators, getting CAT1 status mean that we have to do things that are globally accepted, there is no way that we could have gotten all these things if cargoes and any other area was less than what is expected.

So, I will conceal that we had an incident in the past and I will like  us to realize that it is not only in Nigeria which is a developing market, it has happened elsewhere in the developed market, so the focus on cargo has been such that we all needed to up the gain and I want to say very quickly here that as a company that it is one of the reasons  why we have embarked on modernizing our warehouse as well as increasing the size and the modernization involves state of the art equipment such as CCTV’s.

On  complaints of the airlines about ground handling

We are a customer oriented company and some of these complaints do get to me however it does not mean that I can leave my desk and solve them one by one, we have structure and a process here not only do we have a Chief Operating Officer who handles things around there, we also have a designated manager at different locations at MMA2, airport here, and the locations outside of Lagos who tackle these issues.

Once they come we take them very seriously because our customers are where our bread and butter come from, we look into them and wherever we need to take remedial action we take them immediately and we get back to our customers because we need to keep their confident otherwise we will lose their business .