Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah and Head of Turkish Civil Aviation Agency, Bilal Eksi, at the D-8 working group meeting today
In order to stop flight delays in the country, the Federal government will soon oversee the commencement of aircraft hire service to airlines by manufacturers, Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah has said.
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The minister, who gave the indication Thursday during the opening ceremony of the 6th D-8 working group on civil aviation and Directors General meeting in Transcorp Hilton Abuja, observed that only 5% of the population is flying and that only one third of the cities are served by airlines.
"The second stage now is how do we bring in-country sufficient aircraft so that you and I can plan our businesses; we can travel and air transport will become the preferred mode of transportation that it should be. And so, in accomplishing that the ministry of Finance has agreed with us that the usage of the intervention fund should be done differently where in addition to restructuring the airlines, the airlines will have access to pool of aircrafts. And we are going to have a third party sort of contract that where the manufacturer will not only domesticate the maintenance of these aircrafts, but will also give us these aircrafts, and we will fence the revenue. So, it becomes win-win for everyone," she said.
"Airlines are struggling, but ours is peculiar. Peculiar because when we enhanced and reinforced the regulatory body, and they did audit of most of the aircrafts and the operators, most of them that were healthy had to be stopped from operation, again because of safety measures. The issue now should be how do we move forward from here on," she said.
She added that "Our government took holistic review of the airline operation and how do we enhance them. If you recall our master plan was emphatic on growing domestic airlines. In growing them, we are working with Central Bank, ministry of Finance, and we are essentially asking that we reposition these domestic airlines. We are doing several things, one is that we are going to give them a tax break and remove the import tax. That has been done. The government has graciously approved that.
Ms Oduah also noted that the fatal Dana airline accident of June point to the fact that safety is a journey, not a destination pledging that flight delays will soon be a thing of the past.
"The public will have new modern aircraft that is safe. The airline operators will have aircrafts and the regulatory authority will work in ensuring that they maximise the route flow. So, you don't go to the airport and you sit for hours because the operator is unable to sufficiently and effectively manage routing of their aircraft. All these are the things we are putting in place now. And I am happy to say that in a couple of weeks or months, we are going to have the results and have sufficient aircrafts," she said.
Watch the minister of Aviation here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X_lfRIOS6E