United Nigeria Airlines’ boss advocates synergy between operators

Nigeria’s newly launched indigenous airline, United Nigeria Airlines, is extending a hand of relationship to other operators in the industry with a view to saving the cost of aircraft maintenance and tapping from the huge market.

Chairman of the airline, High Chief Obiora Okonkwo, told members of the League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents at a press briefing in Lagos yesterday that he is a strong advocator of cooperation in the industry.

According to him, the flying market is quite huge, and to enable every operator to tap the gains of the market, there has to be some kind of synergy between airlines.

“I am a strong advocator of cooperation in the industry. There should be synergy between operators. The market is huge. There could even be mergers where people can merge together to become stronger and bigger airlines and use common facilities for themselves.

“The resultant effect is that if you have one or two aircraft and you have to provide certain equipment for maintenance, the industry has room for MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) which enables operators to exchange tools. I think that it is a good way to reduce the cost of maintenance.

“You might have a spare part lying in your office that you don’t need and your cooperator needs it immediately to keep flying until his own arrives in few days, exchanging it, that’s borrowing, and then returning it, I encourage it. We are open and willing to maintain such relationship. We have signed such MoUs with some operators,” said Chief Okonkwo.

The United Nigeria Airlines’ boss believes that if there is a level playing ground for every operator (which the airlines must create for themselves) in the industry, then there really won’t be any need for envy.

He added: “There is really no need for anybody to be envious of each other. The market is huge. Cooperation will be mutually beneficial to those who are involved.”

Revealing its plans further, the Chairman said that the airline was already negotiating with foreign partners to set up a Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility at its hub in Enugu State.

Part of the negotiations, according to the Chairman, is to acquire a piece of land from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria for that purpose. 

He explained that the airline’s long-term plan is to go for long haul, that is why it requires an MRO to boost its capacity in-house, so it won’t necessarily be doing all its checks abroad.

“We are in a process of acquiring land space from FAAN to set up our MRO and since our base is in Enugu, we wanted to establish it there in Enugu. We gave ourselves 24 months to start doing our own C-Check in our facility however because we are in the process of getting space we are two (2) months behind schedule,” said Chief Okonkwo.

Just two months into operations, the airline has airlifted 25,000 passengers already, with an average of 3,200 passengers weekly.

The secret is that the airline has adopted a viable business plan that is good for domestic operations, featuring the Embraer ERJ145 aircraft which is fuel efficient and less expensive to maintain.

“The ERJ 145 is a good fuel-efficient aircraft and we are negotiating an additional two (2) Embraers and we would use that to consolidate on our entire routes. As you know after we do that, we go for a bigger aircraft. As you know the Embraer is a good fuel-efficient aircraft but we need a bigger aircraft for baggage.

“We have gone through due diligence before we earmarked the ERJ as the choice of aircraft and the fuel utilization is a huge advantage. It might surprise you to know that the evening we got our Air Operators Certificate (AOC) we opened our portal and on the first flight within 12 hours we have a full passenger load,” the Chairman said.

Chief Okonkwo disclosed that the airline currently has four of the ERJ145 in its fleet but is negotiating an additional two to help its consolidation plans on the domestic route.

The airline also gives a bigger picture as it aims to acquire wide-bodied aircraft in the ranks B747, B777, and, or Airbus A380 for international operations.