The Director, Centre, Centre for International Advanced and Professional Studies (CIAPS), Prof. Anthony Kila, has canvassed a special bank for indigenous carriers and aviation infrastructure.
Kila said the special bank would not only create a window to access foreign exchange but also serve as an intervention in assuaging the crisis rocking the sector.
Speaking at the Airport Correspondents Conference in Lagos, Kila said the inability to access foreign exchange and other factors had been attributed as major reasons indigenous carriers were going under.
In his presentation, entitled: “Passenger Experience in Daylight Airports,” Kila said it was not enough to have funds from the government or aviation desks in commercial banks; but it has been expedient to activate an aviation bank that would raise and manage other funds and offer niche financial products for the industry.
He said: “In the spirit of rethinking of and restoring aviation, operators need to go beyond flying or selling and distributing tickets.
“Maintenance of equipment, refining of aviation fuel, training and development of human capital and other problems that are adversely affecting the sector can be thrown open to the market as opportunities for players outside the aviation sector.”
To do all these , requires the ability to conceive, shape, and propose a rewarding and sustainable partnership between the public and private sectors.”
According to him, holders of any debit and credit card issued by one bank could withdraw money from the Automated Teller Machine (ATM) of other bank.
Also, Chief Executive Officer, Belujane Konzults, Mr Chris Aligbe, called on the Federal Government to instruct the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to create a special window for local carriers to draw foreign exchange.
He said: “What I suggest is that the CBN should identify the airline sub-sector as a major concern. Unless they do that, realising that it is the most effective transportation that will keep the engine of the economy going.
“Until they come to that point and do what they should do, which is to buy the forex for them to continue operating, we would still remain where we are. The immediate causes of the closure of these airlines are forex and fuel although some of them have remote causes for their failure.”