The absence of Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facilities in the country has been identified as a major constraint why Nigerian airlines are bound to fail.

This was the submission of the Vice President of Airline Operators of Nigeria, ONA, and Air Peace Chairman, Allen Onyema during a stakeholder meeting organised by Aviation Round Table (ART) in Lagos.

Onyema stated that Nigerian carriers lose millions of money in dollars maintaining their aircraft overseas because Nigeria does not have major Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility in the country.

He said: “As I speak to you now, I am sure I have about eight aircraft abroad and these are costing millions of dollars. Even to ferry those planes abroad is a lot of money already.

“So, the Nigerian airlines are destined to fail from the beginning. You are dead on arrival because there are so many things against you. You don’t have MROs that could take care of maintenance. That should have been a major priority government should have facilitated.

“I do not believe in government doing business but government can provide the enabling environment for people of means to come and build the facility. If government sets up MRO it will fail, because government businesses fail anywhere in the world. All they need to do is to provide the enabling environment and people will build the facility.”

Reiterating on the challenges faced by domestic airlines, Onyema said that not having transit facility at any of the nation’s major airports is a hindrance to intra-regional connectivity and even international operations.

“Ideally, in passenger movement, airlines on international service can use airport with transit facility as hub where passengers are brought together and taken to other destinations, but Nigeria does not have such facility at any of its airports.

“To support Nigerian airlines to be stronger, the airport infrastructure must be improved too. Government officials said Nigerian airlines are not flying international. They compare them with Ethiopian Airlines. The Nigerian airport does not have a transit facility.”

We don’t have the infrastructure for transiting. We wanted to do it, but the infrastructure at the airports does not support it. We don’t really have a facility where we can bring a large number of travellers, keep them before we fly them to their destinations. Immigration and Customs will tell you that they have not provided for that yet. So, why are we now blaming the airlines for not doing these things? Put everything right and see the airlines succeed. That is the only time you can really assess the airlines rightly; when you have these things working for them. So, there is nothing like transiting, we don’t have the transiting infrastructure in Nigeria,” Onyema said.