By Jimoh Babatunde & Daniel Eteghe,  with agency reports

Nigeria will be saved millions of foreign exchange from airlines that can now carry out maintenance in the country as Aero Contractor has been issued Aircraft Maintenance Organisation certificate.

The certificate was issued to Aero recently by the Director General, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, Dr. Harold Demurin, in a ceremony that was witnessed by stakeholders in the industry.

Speaking during the presentation, Demurin said the issuance of the certificate is unique to the country as several jobs will be created in the country.

The NCAA boss said the benefits of the feat achieved by Aero will not only benefit the airline alone but also other Nigerian carriers that make use of the model/series of aircraft it has approval to maintain. He noted that millions of dollars hitherto expended on ferrying aircraft to foreign facilities in Europe and America would be saved and the huge money also paid on expensive labour would no longer hold.

Giving a typical example, Demuren said on several occasions, “when foreign maintenance organization bills you $300,000 apart from you paying for fuelling and ferrying the plane to their maintenance base overseas, by the time the job is completed you end up paying over $600,000 and can even be much more, depending on the type of maintenance and or the model/series of the plane”.

He added that by this issuance, Aero will be in a position to do some levels of third party maintenance for other airlines and thereby able to make money from such exercises, which have always been done abroad.

Demurin explained that the airline met the new Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulations by the agency, adding “the re certification process started in 2010 and ended May this year.”

He said there were five phases the airline went through before the certification, adding that the airline now has capacity to carry out full maintenance in Nigeria on Boeing 737-300,400 and 500, HS125, DH200 a helicopters including Eurocopters model.

Beyond the capital flight that results from money taken out of the country by foreign airlines that, through extra frequencies and multiple entries, make so much from Nigeria, aircraft maintenance had also been identified as another source of capital flight because of absence of a hangar or maintenance, repair and overhaul, MRO, facility in Nigeria.