There are many things people fantasize about while flying on an airplane. But the ultimate fantasy I suppose must be to make love on a plane. It is a very tempting prospect especially when the plane is flying trans-Atlantic and it’s about 2am in the dead of the night. The cabin crew has finished serving dinner and retired to rest their aching feet. The lights have been turned off. Many seats have been reclined. Soft snores are heard from passengers who have made a sort of ‘astral travel to another world’. You and your babe are awake talking and probably touching. Only the fear of being caught has been the sobering restraint for many. But even that fear has not deterred some people who are either too adventurous or too far gone to care about the consequences of being caught. Furtive and extremely risky attempts have been made including clumsy trips to the toilets when these love birds think everybody has ‘retired for the night’. These days, First Class and Business Class passengers have cubicles, beds and therefore some privacy which could be used as incentives by those seized by lust and adventure. The Nigeria Airways of the 70s and 80s didn’t have these cubicles even for its First Class passengers. In fact, I don’t think any airline had introduced beds and cubicles in the 70s.

There was this very rich Nigerian who was known as much for his philanthropy as his promiscuity. Flights had routinely waited for him, airline operatives had routinely waited on him, not only in Nigeria, but in several African countries. He had done about everything he could with a commercial airline except making love in one. He wanted that experience. He in fact craved it. He mentioned it to a top Nigerian Airways official in operations who said it was possible but at a cost. The rest as they say, is history. This is a true story, told to me by one of the officials who made it happen. So when we talk about why Nigerian Airways failed, it was not because Nigeria used a flying elephant as its logo. After all, as Shakespeare said ‘a rose by any other name will still smell as sweet’. It was not because of professional incompetence. Nigeria went the extra mile to train the staff of the Nigeria Airways. Our pilots were among the best trained in the world. Our air hostesses were pretty, glamorous and professional. The in-flight services were comparable to most other international airlines. Most importantly, Nigeria Airways was one of the safest airlines in the world. So why did it fail?

To start with, the airline business is one of those few businesses that are both labour and capital intensive. In addition, it needs both volume and quality. The avenues for leakages are therefore legion. You’d have to run a tight ship to break even let alone make a profit. Many grow their own food; many run their own catering services; many own hotels; some have stakes at facilities where the mandatory periodic checks are done. All in the effort to bring costs down. In spite of these, many survive only because their governments keep them afloat. In the case of Nigerian Airways, government subventions were increasing every year while debts were rising. The leakages became a sieve. It was no surprise that the airline soon became an elephant which could not walk let alone fly. Why did Nigeria Airways which was once the pride of Nigeria if not Africa go into extinction? Why did an airline with over 45 planes dwindle to zero? Enough technical and professional reports have been made on why the airline collapsed. I am no expert; just an ordinary journalist who chronicles and sometimes participates in events. In my opinion, the Nigeria Airways failed due to the ever pervading Nigerian factor. Factors like complimentary tickets – I confess to being a beneficiary on a couple of occasions. Factors like undue interferences from governments of the day. Factors like loaded invoices and payments for jobs not done while genuine contractors were left unpaid. Perhaps the most debilitating factor was the hijacking of planes for political and other non-economic reasons. A plane could be diverted at a moment’s notice without recourse to the route it was meant for or regard for the people scheduled for the route. An international flight could be delayed for a couple of hours because a big man who had to be in London for a meeting that night was just about to enter his bathroom. No airline run the way the Nigerian Airways was run could survive. In fact, no business run like that could survive.

The recent unfortunate incident between the Emir of Kano and the management of Air Peace Airline is a sad reminder of the days of the Nigerian Airways. According to reports, the Emir’s flight from Banjul to Lagos was delayed. This in turn affected his connecting flight to Kano. This could be exasperating and frustrating as anyone who has had that experience would tell you – I have on many occasions. The normal thing is to ask for redress and compensation especially if the two flights are operated by the same airline as it was in this case. Instead, the Emir’s Chief of Staff wanted the Kano flight delayed so His highness could get on it. This was a request he would not contemplate in Europe or even in Gambia where he was coming from because it would not be granted. It would be an abuse of position and power. It was however, a request that reflects the mind-set of the Nigerian big man. To treat the denial of the request as an insult not only to His Royal Highness but to the entire people of Kano is unfortunate but hardly surprising. Every Nigerian elite speaks for his people when he wants something for himself. This attitude of entitlement; of self-indulgence at the expense of the country, is one of the reasons we are where we are today as a nation.

Nigeria is thinking of having a national carrier again. Is that carrier going to be allowed to operate along the lines of the global best practices in the industry or would it be subject again to the whims and indulgencies of the Nigerian elite? One would have thought we had learnt our lessons.

•Muyiwa Adetiba is a veteran journalist and publisher. He can be reached via titbits2012@yahoo.com

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