says Dr Harold O.Demuren,DG,NCAA
Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority(NCAA) has come a long way after surmounting the teething problems in 2005 and 2006, aftermath of the series of plane crashes and fatalities recorded.
In those period, the capability of NCAA as the regulator cum watchdog of the industry was called to question.This basically informed the overhaul of the management of the Authority by the Federal Government with the appointment of Dr Harold Olusegun Demuren as the Director General leading the new team with a mandate to clear the augean stable and dent brought on the civil aviation operations in the country.
The initial focus of the Dr Demuren led team was first, to stabilize the industry which was clearly in shambles,restore the confidence of the air travelers and on top of it all change the negative image of the country especially-as regards safety- in eyes of international community.Today, things have tremendously changed.
Nigeria has attained Category 1 Safety Status.Junk aircraft have given way to modern generation planes.Financial and Economic issues that had threatened the industry are been given desired attention while lopsided air service agreements are being tackled head-on.Presently,all caders of operations from administrative to technical are manned by qualified personnel.
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| Dr Harold Demuren |
People have raised concerns about the alleged poor maintenance of their fleet of aircraft by Nigerian carriers. How do you react to this?
Demuren:I beg your pardon, that’s nonsense, nothing like that, those eras are gone. Nigeria as a nation, as a matter fact, IATA Director-General just mentions in Morocco that tremendous amount of progress has been made in terms of airline safety in Nigeria.
You all know what used to happen to us in the past. That’s why we have not had any major accident again. We’ve cleaned up the process; no aircraft can fly in this country today without maintenance and safety record.
It’s not possible, that era is gone and gone for good. We have the system in place now. Nigeria has one of the highest safety standards. We do audit every week. It’s all over the place. We have a Safety Management System [SMS] that works in place. Our key oversight has reached the highest standard.
The International Civil Aviation Organization [ICAO], an Agency of the United Nations that oversees global aviation. It carries out safety audit on member states including Nigeria regularly. We come out clean. The America Transportation Safety Administration [TSA] also carries out Security Audit on Nigeria, particularly on the major airports.
We performed creditably well. For your information Nigeria got Category 1 in the last audit of the Country by the American Federal Aviation Administration [FAA] in its International Aviation Safety Assessment [IASA] audit program.
This has enabled a Nigerian registered aircraft to fly directly from Nigeria to the United States of America. That’s what it means, that you are now number one. That’s what we’ve achieved. We are in the Premier League.
So, how can you now say somebody brings airplane with questionable safety papers to Nigeria. It’s just a figment of their imagination. What do we do? No aircraft can fly in Public Transport Category carrying passengers for hire and reward without having a valid Air Operation Certificate [AOC]. To get it is hectic. Your maintenance, your flight operation, your training, the head of your crew, everything is scrutinized. Your manual, your procedure, your systems, everything. That’s what happens.
What type of systems check are in place to ensure aircraft are given proper maintenance either here or if flown abroad?
Demuren: Let me explain to you, in the first instance, according to law of aviation and as it is the norm all over the world whether it is International Civil Aviation Organization[ICAO] or Federal Aviation Administration [FAA] or the United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority[UKCAA] or the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority[NCAA] the practice is the same.
You cannot send your aircraft to another place unless it has been approved by NCAA. You must have an approval called AMO –that is- Approved Maintenance Organization, where the maintenance of your aircraft is carried out.
They also must have approved the place, give them approval and they go there to audit their work whether or not the maintenance of the for the army aircraft of aircraft done by other countries. So, they must maintain those aircraft as scheduled. We don’t allow airline operators to do maintenance as per customers’ request. They do it as par approved maintenance schedule of NCAA. Let me give you one example.
You do your A check every twenty to twenty-five day, you do your B check every three month, you do C check every year or you do it after so many hours, so many circles. Nigeria super-imposed calendar limitations. So we are stricter that you must do it and it must go.
So, number one, before you send it, it must be approved by NCAA, then later on, before the aircraft is going to leave the service point, our people will go and verify whether those works have been done. There’s a work package, there’s a work graph that everyone follows, one by one.
Only when you have done that and the mandatory airworthiness that you must comply with. Check interval you must not miss, all those there. We have a very solid surveillance program.Our inspectors go round the tarmac, they burst into any aircraft without prior notice, and they show their identity [ID] and demand to see safety record the particular aircraft they enter. Where is your certificate of maintenance that was issued? Our engineers will check your record and ask questions. So, with the system we now have in place it is not possible to say we have safety issues.
You are 100% sure…..?
Demuren:Yes!If not, aircraft will be dropping from the sky.
What exactly is the standard requirements for opening an airline?
Demuren:To open an airline you must get the permission, you must have what we called economic authorizations that you want to go into the business. Economic authorization involves that you must apply to NCAA, get all your papers, you must have very good business model you want to do, what type of aircraft, where do you want to go and many more.
After that we apply to our own parent ministry, Ministry of Aviation, to tell our minister this application, this is what we are doing and they should please seek for security clearance. That is economic authorization, you will now start what we call Air Operation Certificate[AOC] proper and that is the big deal.
Those are safety requirements, how do you train your crew, you have plans for your maintenance, where are you going to do it, what about your dispatch, it goes to everything, your flight crew, your cabin crew, your maintenance engineers, every safety requirements must be met.
We go through one by one. What about your manual, where are your tools and equipment to do the work, have you train the people, how much are you giving them? There’s also what we said qualified personnel in sufficient number, for instance, this job requires twenty people to work for you, show us the twenty people. You must show me, if they are nineteen then it’s not complete yet, you must show the twenty, we call it Qualified Highly Rated Experience Personnel in sufficient number. This happen every time but when we stopped them from operating, revoke the license we don’t do it on the pages of newspapers.
Why does it take much longer time to process compensation of accident victims?
Demuren:We sued all the airlines involved at the time. Bellview paid very quickly, out of all of them Bellview did very well. Sosoliso had issues and finally decided to pay; they have to sell some the aircraft to compensate the people.
There is what we called in American Law, Family Assistance Programme, when they say people died, everybody commiserate with them, they will go, we forget there. Most likely all will be paid; to buy the aircraft back is easier to pay. But they don’t remember the passengers that died.
Our Law is very strict on it, thou shall pay……. so, we are pursuing it. What we have done has been to work with Nigerian Insurance Commission also to ensure that those insurance papers they are given to us are true and genuine ones, not that you are getting cover notes, there’s nothing there and people will pay their premium and then they call insurance to honour it and do the right thing. They have to reinsure it in Europe, America or Canada.
What new security measures are in place to fight the growing global terrorism, especially growing domestic terrorism?
Demuren:We have introduced modern explosive detection technique. This is in addition to advance profiling and background checks with special attention to insider threats.
What is NCAA doing to assist airlines that are indebted, so that they do not close down?
Demuren:We insisted that Airlines must pay the services they have enjoyed. They must pay their debts, period!
What exactly informed the price fixing investigation into British Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airlines?
Demuren: Specially, we’ve noticed from a lot of analysis we have done and we found out that these particular airlines because they have the opportunity of direct flight from Lagos to London, and that’s our biggest route, business route for Nigeria. Nigerians are ally of the British, they go to London every time, our children are there. So, we look at that route, we monitor the route and we found out that there has been lot of collusion, deception, unjust and discriminatory practices going on and above all, it’s an abuse of dominant position, uses that to cheat Nigerians particularly when it comes to fares in the first class, business class and even the economy is not spared. That’s why we looked into this and we now also found out that they have been fined for such issue in US and UK.
Was the investigation due to written petition/protest?
Demuren:Some Nigerians in diasporas, wrote to me and say look, this is happening and there has been lot of concerns in the papers asking why this, why are you not doing this and that, why are you not looking at this and that. And I thought it’s best for us also to look into it.
Now, with the directive that both airlines should pay 235million dollars in fines to customers and the airlines are saying they reject your findings. What’s the next?
Demuren: They have the right to reject the findings. We have been talking with them, and we didn’t just wake up one day to do what we did. For the past six months we have been dealing with them. A lot of investigations have taken place, very, very extensive indeed. At the end of the day, we discovered huge violation and according to our civil aviation regulations, we can impose sanction and that’s what we’ve done. So, if they say they reject the findings, they are entitle to their opinion but the due course of law has to be fulfilled.
What if they resort to seeking redress in the court?
Demuren:We are ready for that. We will meet them there. We have our lawyers, team of experts and lawyers are with us, they have been working with us from day one in the past six months and so they have all the details. So, we are ready to meet them in court if that is the option they have chosen.
Many have been wondering whether it’s coincidental that your report came out at a time when the government is having a spat with the British on the slot and frequency issues.
Demuren:Honestly speaking this is totally unconnected. I said in the last six months we have been with them and they will tell you, we summoned them. We’ve been talking to them. We didn’t know about the slot issue. It just happened at this time when we were talking with the Minister of Aviation about these unfair discriminatory practices. So, it was very easy to mention it, it was just right to mention it at the same time that we already are having this investigation and we called the foreign airlines to a meeting before that time where I expressed these concerns. I told them that this must stop. Look at the prices we pay for ticket out of Nigeria and the one you pay if you are going out of Ghana, twice the amount, why? And the fuel surcharge has been so much, they are abusing it even when the price of crude oil was going down, their prices were still going up drastically. We showed all these on the table to let them know about their position and they knew what they were doing. They can buy time, they can do all sort, but it’s not going to work.
If the airlines finally agrees to pay, what happens. How do you disburse to customers?
Demuren:That is fine. Is compensation to customers, they did it abroad, they did it in America, they announced it. We would work it out in our office so that we would get all the customers who are affected duly compensated. We would do that; it’s a normal procedure. Set up a website where they can call, what they can do, show their evidences and all that. We must make sure they get their rights back. There is no compromise on this. We will continue to protect Nigerians traveling abroad from abuses and exploitation.
How does this apply to Nigerian airlines that are also guilty of similar abuses?
Demuren:We’ve just started and this is where the big ones are. When you are doing something you go to big ones first then the message is all over the place and then it goes round. But Nigerian consumers must get the value for their money and they must not be cheated, we must discourage all these acts of collusion, deception, unjust, and discriminatory fares must stop it. So, the investigations includes both local airlines as well as foreign airlines. The important thing is that they must give best service to their customers whether they are Nigerian or foreign passengers as long as the flight is originating from Nigeria or coming into our country.
What exactly are the terms of BASA?
Demuren:BASA stands for Bilateral Air Service Agreement. This is done between two nations. They sit down and talk about air service agreement, what do we do? What are the conditions for us to fly to your country? What aircraft can we bring? How much frequency can we fly? Which airport can we land? It’s just all about that. We have intermediate points, we have the point beyond which you can go. That’s what BASA is about. But a stranger cannot enter a country as a matter of right, it’s a privilege. So, External Affairs Ministry, Ministry of Aviation get together, hold meetings whether here or abroad, agree on the terms and then designate the airlines from that country to now go out to enjoy the benefits of the agreed routes based on agreed terms and conditions.
What determines the allocation of frequency to airlines?
Demuren:Usually, it depend on the level of traffic on the route, how busy it is, how much passengers are available. You can then decide whether this is a developed route or new route in which case you have to put in a lot of capital to develop the route before you can commence flight operations. Look at Emirate, they have two flights a day out of Lagos to Dubai, British Airways [BA], two flights, one in the morning, one in the evening. British Airways is doing, one in the morning out of Abuja, one in the evening out of Lagos, Virgin Atlantic is doing one in the morning too, Arik is doing one from Lagos, one from Abuja also. And that’s how it is in the case of frequency; you have to watch it so that you don’t dilute the market.
But when you talk about slot, the slot is when you can land, what actual time of the day can you have a slot coming. That’s what is slot and that is done by the airport committee. But if you watch it these days, we have been very generous now. The foreign airlines can come in anytime to do their business. But if our people want to go over there you give us frequency but no slot, that’s not frequency. A frequency without slot is not frequency, you must have slot. I can’t be playing in the air, I must be able to land, and it can’t be one-sided. Those were the things that were discussed at our meeting and we are trying to resolve that right now. But it is very important that what you need to do is to make sure that the slots are there and to make sure that the frequencies are there before you can operate.
Having said that, when you have the frequency you can explore the market. The market in Nigeria is open. We welcome foreigners to explore and they can prosper, they can do well. But while our market is open for exploration, it is closed to exploitation.
What benefits do Nigeria stand to gain on the slot issue?
Demuren:The issue at stake is this- We don’t want bilateral service domination between two countries. The two nations are meant to benefit from it. It should not be one-sided. If we are doing something together and you are not happy, I’m happy, you won’t be happy. So, if airlines of other countries can come here and land easily in our country and airlines from here can’t do the same, then it is one-sided, so we need to correct all those imbalances and make sure it is sorted out.
But again, you must have strong airlines that can compete, our airlines are not strong enough, they are only carrying crumbs under the table, the leftovers. They should be able to compete and to compete on safety records, security, good services on board must be there. Once you have that and then we should also patronize them.
Many Nigerians don’t support our own. It’s very important that we do this. But again, to do that you can’t blame Nigerian passengers, you must have inter-connectivity, it’s not everybody that are just going to London, some are going to Manchester, some are going to other destinations in Europe, some going to America, some are going to far the East.
When you get to London, you must be able to take them to those places also. So, our airlines should interline. That’s why we advice them to be International Air Transport Association [IATA] International Operational Safety Assessment[IOSA] compliant and interline so that they can sell their tickets all over the world from point to point. Once you do that, you can compete with other foreign airlines to the satisfaction of passengers.
We can therefore not really blame the foreign airlines on the BASA issue since Nigerian registered airlines are operating from a point of weakness.
Demuren:But what I’m saying is that whether competition or not why should I buy a ticket out of Lagos to London and pay twice than what I will pay if I buy from Ghana? It doesn’t make sense; it’s just a rip off. You don’t do that and it’s the same distance from Ghana to London, what’s the difference? So, why should they double the price, why? What have we done wrong? Oh! We have money? We can afford it? That’s nonsense.
A lot of speculations are out there that by doing that they are trying to make Ghana a regional hub and that since we don’t have strong airlines to compete strongly and take advantage of BASA, it may not exactly be the faults BA or VAA…..
Demuren:You can’t come to Nigeria and rip people off, whether there is competition or not. Why should I buy a ticket out of Lagos to London and pay twice of what I am paying if I go to Ghana to buy the same ticket when it’s the same distance? It doesn’t make sense. They doubled the price; it is simply outrageous to say the least. And I repeat here and now: our market is open to exploration but close to exploitation. We would not allow you to do that to us. The purpose of business for goodness sake, let’s do good business, business that all of us can do and all of us can be happy.
Both sides must benefit that’s what BASA means, between two nations so that the two nations can benefit, they can prosper in it. When it’s one-sided it is no longer a good agreement. How can I have agreement with somebody, all of us agreed and then only one side is benefiting, you have to find out what’s wrong.
What I understand you to mean earlier is that frequency without slot is no frequency.
Demuren:It’s no frequency as far as I’m concern. Are you going to be roaming around in the air and you won't be able to land. Slot is what allows you to land. You don’t just go and be signing agreements with everybody saying you have open air and everybody can come to your country when there is no place to land and you can take advantage in our own country, you must find out why that is so. And these slots are held by your airlines here and there.
Are you saying all these foreign airlines should now pay for slots in Nigeria?
Demuren: It’s the responsibility of Federal Airports Authority Nigeria(FAAN) and they are looking at it. When they are ready, they will tell us. If they tell me today they want to do that, I have no objection especially for countries that are doing it to us.
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