‘Institutional Agencies Struggle To Offer Basic International Airline Services’

The chief operating officer(CEO), Ibom Air, George Uriesi, has stated that institutional agencies saddled with the responsibilities of ensuring smooth operation of Nigeria’s airline industry are struggling to provide basic international standard services.

Uriesi, at a breakfast meeting of the Nigerian-South Africa Chamber of Commerce (NSACC) in Lagos, said, the basic support and infrastructure available anywhere in the world to ensure a virile airline industry is very difficult to access in Nigeria, adding that, the country currently has sub-optimal domestic airlines but could be much better if given the right support it deserves.

According to him, there is a lack of ability to invest in the nation’s airline sector because it requires huge financial investments.

“The financing is heavy for for us who have ordered for 10 brand new aeroplanes. We know how many hundreds of millions of dollars that is. Presently, we struggle to meet ordinary forex obligations to pay for the things that make the airline work and everything on an aircraft is forex-based. If you cannot get forex, you can never have a developed airline like other countries that have access to forex. One of the biggest problems is that instead of running an airline, we are still struggling to access forex,” he pointed out.

He added that, apart from the forex challenge, the sector is also bedeviled by inconsistent policies of the federal government, saying, a lot of factors come together to make it a very faulty foundation upon which the industry has been built.