By Dickson Omobola

Airline Operators of Nigeria, AON, has lamented the global scarcity of aircraft, saying it is preventing Nigerian carriers from fully benefiting from their removal from the Aviation Working Group, AWG, compliance index watchlist.

AWG is a not-for-profit legal entity that comprises major aviation manufacturers, leasing companies and financial institutions that contribute to the development of policies, laws and regulations that facilitate advanced international aviation financing and leasing.

Earlier in the month, the International Air Transport Association, IATA, also said a shortage of aircraft and spare parts, among others, was dampening air transport growth in Africa.

While expressing sadness over the aircraft backlog, IATA said it exceeded 17,000 and is sharply up from the 10,000-11,000 pre-pandemic, with an implied wait time of 14 years.

Spokesperson for the AON, Professor Obiora Okonkwo, who spoke to newsmen in Lagos during an event where United Nigeria Airlines announced its integration into Sabre, said the inability of bigger operators or lessors to acquire new aircraft has also driven up the cost of aircraft leasing.

Okonkwo, however, expressed optimism that domestic carriers would soon start to reap the full benefit of increased lessor confidence.

His words: “As you may know, some of the operators who were victims of the decision of international lessors might not necessarily have been involved in the act that led to that. Thank God that today, international lessors have lifted the ban placed on Nigeria to dry lease. The issue that we had also was our insurance policy. There has been an amendment to that insurance policy. And in the course of achieving that, we worked on the CTC practice direction.

“However, the biggest challenge we have now is that there is a scarcity of aircraft worldwide. From the backlog of the COVID-19, which extended production time for new aircraft, we now walked through some technical issues with the Boeing MAX, which grounded a lot of aircraft. And then coming to the regional aircraft with their E2 engines.

“With these things, it is only when the new aircraft are manufactured and delivered to the bigger operators or bigger lessors that they will now replace it with the old ones, thereby resulting in more aircraft in the market. But because the situation has not changed, those people who signed six, seven years aircraft lease agreements that were supposed to expire last year had to extend it.

“We know that there are a lot of lessors happy to do business with Nigeria, but the aircraft they are expecting to come back to their inventory is still being held on. So, this is what we are going through. As a matter of fact, you will find legacy operators who ordinarily would not operate aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance, ACMI, even struggling with us with ACMI. So, this has made the cost of everything very high.”

Last year, AWG increased Nigeria’s global compliance score from 49 per cent to 75.5 per cent, which showed an improved adherence to international aviation standards. Also, the AWG removed Nigeria from the Compliance Index Watchlist.