Nigeria’s decrepit civil aviation industry is warming up to return to a turbulent sky. The industry was shut down in March 2020 about two weeks after the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic.
Next week, the federal government would open the skies again for the 125 idle airliners in the fleet of Nigeria’s troubled airlines. That should be good news for airlines operators, but the monumental challenges that lie ahead have dampened the joy.
The aviation industry is in advanced stage of financial asphyxiation. It has lost well over N60 billion in the three months that it was under lockdown.
After three months of grounding, the industry would be returning to face mountains of debts with empty coffers. One of the airlines obtained a loan of N40 billion to expand its fleet, but with three months of absolute inactivity there are fears that the loan might have slipped into Nigeria’s banking industry’s myriads of non-performing loans (NPLs).
Besides, COVID-19 might have inadvertently invalidated the planned fleet expansion of the airline. If low patronage keeps the new aircraft sitting endlessly on the tarmac, then the chances of servicing the loan are pretty slim.
The future of Nigeria’s aviation industry is pretty gloomy. COVID-19 has taken away millions of jobs from some people and created new ones for others. The aviation industry is one of the greatest casualties of COVID-19. The industry may never be the same again even if the pestilence is conquered tomorrow. It has added a new phraseology to the lexicon of the medical profession which has become a toga plaguing the global aviation industry. The new expression is “social distancing”. It requires that people stay at least four feet apart.
Social distancing is a tall order for the aviation industry which might force Boeing and Airbus corporations, the two leaders in global wide-body aircraft manufacturing, back to the drawing board to fashion out new configurations for airliners of the 2020s.
Meanwhile, the civil aviation industry would have to contend with one of the calamities forced on it by the marauding pandemic. That calamity is low patronage. COVID-19 has taken a huge chunk of business from the aviation industry to the telecoms industry. Millions of business executives who used to fly for thousands of kilometers to attend meetings lasting not more than five hours, now attend such meetings in the comfort of their bedrooms through zoom.
That automatically would translate into millions of empty seats in aircraft returning to the skies. It again translates to billions of dollars in global losses to airlines. The airlines industry in Nigeria is likely to suffer even more losses to low patronage conjured by COVID-19. More executives would rather spend money on internet data than flight tickets.
Besides, the ruthless pestilence has shut down the global tourism industry and it might remain so for the next one year. No one is flying to tourism sites again. That again would translate into millions of empty seats in aircraft roaming the skies.
The social distancing factor would hit the Nigerian aviation industry catastrophically. The cost would be borne both by operators and consumers of their services (passengers).
The fleets of airlines in Nigeria’s aviation industry are dominated by Boeing 737s, the world’s most popular single aisle, short range airliner. The 737 has about 27 rows of seats on each side of the single aisle. Each row contains three seats. Most of the older versions of 737s are therefore configured to carry anything from 160 passengers.
The dictates of social distancing now demands that the airlines invalidate the middle seat in each of the three-seat rows on both sides of the aisle. That would amount to each of the 737s flying with 54 empty seats, about a third of its capacity.
At an average of N25, 000 as air fare for a one hour flight, the airlines would be losing N1.35 million per flight. Someone would have to pay for the loss if the airlines must remain in business. The most likely casualty of the impending loss would be consumers of airlines services. Consequently, social distancing might hike airfares by something close to 50 per cent. If the airlines decide to levy the remaining passengers for the luxury of social distancing, the fare for a one hour flight might rise by a minimum of N12, 500. That might take the fare for a one hour flight booked in advance to a minimum of N37, 500.
That might worsen low patronage as many travellers might opt for the roads despite the odds of contending with kidnappers, armed robbers and accidents on deplorable roads. The fear of low patronage might compel the operators to moderate the fare by absorbing a chunk of the additional cost and hiking the fares by N10, 000. That is still a huge burden, but many would grudgingly bear it.
One thing that might reduce the financial perils of the aviation industry is the cost of aviation fuel. COVID-19 has driven down demand for crude oil and consequently pushed the pump price of fuel to record lows.
There was a time when the pump price of aviation fuel stood menacingly above N200 per liter. Last week it dropped to N110 due to dearth of patronage.
No one knows what will happen when patronage surges as the airliners return to the sky. However, if the price of aviation fuel remains at that level, airlines operators would heave sighs of relief as fuel constitutes about 40 per cent of the operational cost of a flight in Nigeria.
Besides, the federal government can reduce the burden of airlines by waiving some of the 21 charges plaguing them. Nigeria’s aviation industry is in peril. Next week, operators would be heading back into turbulent skies. If nothing is done to assuage their financial asphyxiation, some of the airlines would be heading out in what is known in industry parlance as controlled flight into terrain. That is a friendly word for crash landing.
