The high cost of spare parts and maintenance has forced several airlines in Nigeria to park their planes across various airports.

It was learnt that foreign exchange scarcity has also forced some airlines to take spare parts from one grounded plane to fix others and keep them flying.

A recent visit to the Lagos airport airside showed some grounded airplanes at various points of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (local wing old CAFU apron and Apron by Runway 18L).

It was found that some planes did not have engines, while others such as Boeing 737, Embraer 145s and Embraer E2s had their engines covered up.

Outside the Aero Contractors hanger, there was some Boeing 737s which was either undergoing maintenance or parked after maintenance and awaiting collection.

Beside the Runway 18L holding point was what could be regarded as a graveyard of grounded airplanes, ranging from Airbus 340, B737-200, 300, B727 owned by operational and defunct commercial airlines.

It was found that over 70 planes have been abandoned across Nigerian airports, with most of them at the Lagos airport airside.

In the last few months, only few planes have had to feed several passengers on domestic routes as Nigerian airlines struggle with fleet reduction due to high cost of maintenance.

Airlines that have sent their aircraft on maintenance are unable to return them as a result of the skyrocketing costs owing to the foreign exchange scarcity.

Others have been forced by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to ground their aircraft for the inability to send them for maintenance, checks show.

An airline operator who would not want his name mentioned recently said that it has become very difficult to get spares for aircraft because there is no foreign exchange to purchase them.

The operator said the situation has forced them to cannibalise their aircraft just to stay afloat.

“We have had to make the tough decision of removing parts from one aircraft to another in recent times just to keep an aircraft flying. It is a sad situation which has become a reality to many operators because of the foreign exchange scarcity,” the operator, who described the situation as ‘cannibalisation,’ said.

The operator also hinted that despite the high exchange rate, it is also very difficult to source foreign exchange in the black market.

Obiageli Orah, director of public affairs and consumer protection, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), confirmed the rise in abandoned aircraft at airports, noting that there are different reasons for the grounding of the airplanes.

Orah said while each of the aircraft has its own peculiar reason, it is not one-reason-fits-all for all airplanes.

She said that FAAN is trying to create another location on the other side of the airport to relocate those planes.

“Aircraft on ground have been there and FAAN has had to make announcements and publication on removal and up till now most of them are still there. Some are there because of litigation. Some of them have gone to court. Some of the aircraft are being cannibalised by some of the owners, which parts will be removed to fix other aircraft,” Olumide Ohunayo industry analyst and director of research at Zenith Travels stated.

Ohunayo said a view from the Ikeja bridge in Lagos gives a picture that is not a good representation of the aviation industry.

“Once you climb that bridge, what you see are those parked aircraft. In other climes, there are places designated for these aircraft but FAAN says they want to move them away.

“The space at the Lagos airport is not enough for operating aircraft and when we return to full capacity, we may be having some incidence where an aircraft wing will touch another. There is a need to move those aircraft out of that place to airports with fewer flights and more space,” he added.

John Ojikutu, industry expert and CEO of Centurion Aviation Security and Safety Consult, told BusinessDay that while canibalisation is not new in the Nigerian environment, it is not safe if practised and not approved by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).

“What the airlines are facing today is the effect of not complying with the President Obasanjo directives in 2006. The directives are that the foreign currency earnings from the services provided to the foreign airlines should be deposited in the CBN but the naira equivalent collected.

“There are over $2 billion of such earnings annually from the NCAA, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), FAAN, ground handling services providers and the fuel marketers,” Ojikutu said.

He noted that except the operators and the regulator examine themselves and assess their administration and management critically, the industry is bound to fail sooner than later.

When the naira-dollar exchange rate was N400/$, airlines paid between N200 million and N400 million to carry out C-check. But with the current exchange rate of about N1589/$, airlines have to pay between N794 million and N1.5 billion to carry out C-check on a single aircraft.

Airlines are already paying high insurance premiums due to the country’s perception as a high-risk operating environment and the alleged high premium demanded by local insurance firms in Nigeria.

Data obtained by BusinessDay from the NCAA showed that 13 domestic airlines operating in Nigeria operate a total of 91 aircraft. This data includes aircraft that have gone on maintenance.

Sources close to the NCAA said that apart from Dana Air that has been grounded, over half of the 91 aircraft have gone on maintenance and some have become grounded, putting a strain on the few operating planes.

Speaking on rising aircraft cannibalisation, Ibrahim Mshelia, a captain and owner of West Link Airlines Nigeria and the Mish Aviation Flying School, said: “If an airplane is retired or grounded, there are components that will be on an airplane that are still good. So, if you have a similar fleet and you have a snag, your engineers have the authority to certify and use those parts.

“If the parts are working perfectly when a plane is grounded for whatever reason, then there is nothing wrong with taking parts from an aircraft and using them to fix another,” Mshelia said.

He also said that even when airplanes are not retired or grounded, engineers can take parts from one airplane and put in another, though they have to keep record of the movement of parts.

Michael Achimugu, the NCAA director of public affairs and consumer protection, told BusinessDay that despite the current shortage of aircraft in the country, any plane that is not worthy to fly, will not fly.

“I recently flew an airline that is wet leasing an aircraft from another local airline because they do not have aircraft.

“Our engineers carry out daily inspections on aircraft before they fly and any plane that is not fit to fly will not be allowed to fly by the NCAA. These airlines have to go for their comprehensive C-checks abroad because we do not have enough Maintenance Repair Overhaul (MROs).

“The minister is working on this. One MRO was launched in Uyo recently and when this becomes operational, it would not be enough for airlines to maintain their planes. The minister is also addressing the issue with leasing of aircraft from abroad so that local airlines can have dry leasing. If we can solve this issue, it will help with crashing ticket prices,” the NCAA director explained. (BusinessDay)

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