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Nigeria deserves aircraft maintenance facility – Demuren

By on March 24, 2016

A former Director-General, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, Dr. Harold Demuren, has said that Nigeria is ripe for the establishment of aircraft maintenance facility.

He said that if 40 per cent of the money spent on the re-modelling of airport facilities in the last few years was deployed for that purpose by government, it would have been invaluable for the development of aviation in the country.

Demuren noted that Nigeria had lost huge resources maintaining its aircraft overseas. For instance, he said, besides the economic loss, Nigerian trained aircraft engineers could not secure jobs locally.

He made the call at the Nigerian Business Aviation Conference in Lagos, stressing that if Nigeria must take its place as the West African hub in aviation, it must have its aircraft maintenance facility.

In the same vein, the Managing Director, Toucan Aviation Support Services, AchuzieEzenagu, called on the Federal Government to focus on the development of the aviation sector as a catalyst for economic development.

Ezenagu, who was a panelist at the conference, stressed the need for the government to work with stakeholders to grow the sector as a fulcrum for national development.

In his view, the establishment of the facility would save the country huge financial resources, help to train and employ indigenous aircraft engineers, make aircraft checks cost-effective for airlines and reinforce Nigeria as a hub in West Africa.

Ezenagu, however, observed that establishing an MRO could be challenging and expensive because Nigeria had no infrastructure to facilitate it.

But he noted that with the cooperation of the government and industry stakeholders, it was achievable.

The Nigerian Business Aviation Conference, held annually, is about the development of business aviation, which includes private charter services, cargo operations and others and how they help as catalysts for the nation’s economic development.

“We should make the airport more accessible and make them more available. Government can encourage stakeholders to grow the sector by providing incentives. They should also find a way to bring all data from different sectors of the economy together because all sectors work with another.

“The MRO is costly to set up in Nigeria because of the heavy levies from government, but this can be done. In our own company, we operate Embraer aircraft and we have standby engineers for line maintenance for the planes. We don’t have the facilities to get the checks done here but government can partner with the private sector to establish a major MRO in the country,” Ezenagu said.

 

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