An insurance and risk management expert has predicted that 10 of the global aviation fleet could be unmanned in 10 years’ time.

Delphine Maidou, Chief Executive Officer of Allianz Global, who made the statement on Thursday in Lagos, at an insurance seminar organised by Commercial Risk Africa, entitled, ‘Driving the Risk Management Agenda’, said this is as a result of the rise of the drones and the effectiveness of results it achieves.

Speaking on the topic, ‘Operational Risk – The Rise of the Drone’, Maidou said drone usage in advanced communities has been massively accepted which has in turn helped in producing better results in their activities.

She said the technology behind the drones have shown that it can serve various purposes and can be used in different areas. Among which are: “Field data inspections and risks assessment as they can snap about 1,000 photographs in 15 minutes.

“E-commerce package delivery, transport of medicines, same-day food delivery; Aerial photography and filming in media and entertainment; crop monitoring, soil and field analysis, health assessment; maintenance and optimisation of telecommunication; and risk monitoring, risk assessment and claims management in insurance.”

Because of the demand of the drones, Maidou noted that Market volume is forecast to reach 4.7 million units by 2020 and commercial application estimated to soar from $2 billion to $127 billion.

As useful as the drones have proved to be, Maidou said Africa, unlike Europe is yet to fully catch the drone bug. This she attributed to the continent’s unease about its usage, especially Nigeria.

“In Nigeria, all drones without permit have been banned from the country’s airspace. UAS owners have to obtain permits from aviation and security authorities. Ghana has had safety regulations in place since 2011. The authorities have since published standards and practices to regulate the operations of drones.

“Rwanda is currently building a drone port. They hope to have 18 of these nationally. In Kenya, various UAS projects such as those for tracking livestock theft, endangered species, and photography for instance were terminated after regulators imposed bans citing security concerns and South Africa enacted regulations in 2015. The country has 240 license holders and 418 drones,” she said.

She added that the fear of operating drones in Nigeria may not be farfetched because of the security situation in the country and the fear that it may fall in the wrong hands.

And as if to demonstrate its disaffection for the usage of the drones in the country, Maidou said drone license in Nigeria is about $4,000 against $5 in America and per unit cost about N400,000 in Nigeria.

She observed that though there are some challenges associated with the usage of drones like collision and loss of control amongst others but, with proper education and training the challenges according to her can be minimised.

•Photo shows Allianz Global CEO Delphine Maidou.

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