Category: Aviation

By Kelvin Osa Okunbor

The Managing Director of Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Capt. Rabiu Yadudu said the agency would implement flight spacing at all its airports in order to ensure total safety once the airspace is reopened for flight services.

This is as he said about 85 to 90 per cent of the agency’s staff had been trained by World Health Organisation (W/H.O) on operational and response time on COVID-19 pandemic, including 100 per cent of its staff at Owerri Airport.

Speaking with our correspondent in Lagos over the weekend, Yadudu declared the flight spacing was not to disrupt any of the airline’s schedules, but to ensure total safety of passengers, airline staff and others within the airport environment.

According to him, FAAN had informed the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) of its plan, which he said would restrict multiple departures of flights from the same terminal at the same time.

He said: “We have already told NCAA that we are going to space the flights. No two airlines will depart at the same time from our airports. The spacing is not to make things difficult for the operators, but to protect their staff and other users of our airports.

“It is not going to be unnecessary spacing. Like I told them, it is not a slot, but just spacing of flights.”

Read Also: FAAN moves headquarters to Abuja

On the inadequate space at the General Aviation Terminal of the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos, Yadudu revealed that plans were on to increase its capacity by about 200 per cent with the construction of fabricated materials within the facility.

This, he said would be ready very soon.

He reiterated the readiness of FAAN to recommencement of activities in the industry, stressing that all staff had been adequately trained to withstand the new order.

The FAAN boss maintained that the management followed to the letter all the protocols on Covid-19 pandemic and advisory circular from NCAA, adding that the agency increased its performance by increasing the requirements.

Besides, he said FAAN’s staff had been trained by Port Health Services in order to ensure compliance on resumption.

He said: “No airport in Nigeria has 100 per cent of its staff trained by W.H.O and Port Health on Covid-19 pandemic, but we achieved that with Owerri Airport. All our staff at Owerri airport are trained 100 per cent with certificates issues. Overall, about 85 to 90 per cent of our staff have been trained and we want to achieve 100 per cent training for all.

“At GAT, we have also erected a large canopy for people to stay in incase of rain. We also have sanitisers and equipment to test their temperature at the airport and others in the country. Our tap water has sensors to minimize touch.

“We are discussing with some companies to enlarge the GAT with fabricated materials because we don’t have time for concrete work, which may take another five months to complete. The expansion of the GAT will lead to 200 per cent in the hall capacity.”

Also, Yadudu disclosed that FAAN was installing transparent shields in front all airline counters operating from its terminal in a bid to minimise physical contacts, adding that wearing of face masks and other protocols by Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) would be made compulsory.

At the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja, Yadudu emphasised that FAAN would open two arrival halls for more convenience of passengers

By Kelvin Osa Okunbor

Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has banned the use of privately registered aircraft for charter flight services.

Effective Monday, June 29, 2020 the authority said it will ground privately owned by aircraft which engage in ‘hire and reward services’, which in aviation par lance means charter operations.

The move to regularize the operations of such aircraft it was learnt came on the heels of abuse Permit for Non- Commercial Flight (PNCF) granted privately registered aircraft under operations specification, but has been abused during the pandemic.

Investigations revealed that since the pandemic outbreak there has been misuse of PNCF and improperly registered aircraft listed on Part G operations specification for illegal charters.

To arrest the trend, the NCAA it was learnt has introduced new measures for immediate implementation; which mandates that aircraft duly registered as privately owned should not be used for commercial charter.

In a circular issued on June 24, 2020 and addressed to the Directorate of Operations and Training (DOT), Directorate of Airworthiness Standards (DAWS) and the Directorate of Air Transport Regulations (DATR) of the NCAA, its Director General, Captain Musa Nuhu directed them to ensure application of the new regulatory regime.

Read Also: Airlines not authorised to begin test flights —NCAA

According to the circular privately-registered aircraft, known as Operations Specification Part G, which have Permit for Non-Commercial Flight (PNCF) would henceforth be stopped from operating for hire and reward.

It reads: “All aircraft listed under OPS SPECS PART G (commercial wet lease) that is either in non-compliance or in violation of any part thereof of NCAR (Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulation) Part 9.2.3.4(b) shall be grounded with effect from Monday 29, June, 2020.

The NCAA, it was learnt has commenced disciplinary actions on its personnel who were privy to allowing privately owned aircraft used for charter services.

NCAA threatened to ground any private aircraft used for charter in addition to revoking the operating licence of anyone that disobeyed the directive.

Investigations reveal that about half of the 100 privately owned airplanes engage in charter services exploiting lax regulations.

Nuhu also directed that: “DATR shall provide a comprehensive list, details of all PNCF holders and all aircraft listed under their permit.

All PNCF holders shall be reminded of the terms and conditions of the permit, especially the non-commercial nature. Any violation will attract penalty under Nig.CARs, including revocation.”

He also directed the aforementioned directorates in the agency to develop procedures and guidance to ensure all NCAA staff complied with NCARs in processing all applications.

Nuhu also directed the concerned directorates to submit a single comprehensive report to him on the implementation of items mentioned above, measures taken and the reasons why these violations were allowed and not resolved in the first instance.

By Kelvin Osa Okunbor

A few years after its designation by Federal Government: flag carrier – Air Peace at the weekend operated its maiden flight on the Lagos/London route to demonstrate its capacity for long haul operations.

Spokesman of the carrier, Mr Stanley Olisa commended government for the opportunity it was given to evacuate 327 Nigerians stranded in the United Kingdom.

Describing the operations as another window to demonstrate its capacity to fly into destination , the carrier deployed its Boeing 777 with registration number 5N- BWI , which departed Heathrow Airport London for Abuja and later proceeded to the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos.

Read Also: Flight resumption: Air Peace embarks on out of storage test flights

Air Peace Spokesperson, Stanley Olisa said: “We’re delighted to have operated this flight. It unmistakably shows that Air Peace can fly to anywhere in the world, given the required support of the government”, Olisa asserted.

Since March when the Federal Government banned flight operations across the country as a measure to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19, Air Peace has been operating series of ‘special flights’ to and from different countries, including China, Turkey, India, Israel and South Africa. More of such flights are in the offing, according to the airline. “

By Kelvin Osa Okunbor

The Chairman House Committee on Aviation, Nnolim Nnaji has urged the Ministry of Aviation and its agencies to ensure adequate personnel is deployed to airports to maintain crowd control and appropriate distancing both at the screening points and boarding gates.

This is just as the committee called on the Ministry of Aviation and stakeholders to ensure there is strict observance of safety protocols designed to contain the spread of the pandemic in the industry ahead of flight resumption.

Nnaji while acknowledging the successful flight simulation carried out between Abuja and Lagos by the Ministry at the weekend to test run security arrangements put in place in line with the set guidelines issued by the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 to safeguard air travelers said authorities were working round the clock to ensure airports are reopened down to unlock the economy.

He said: “The test flight which conveyed members of the Taskforce from Abuja to Lagos to assess the various safety measures put in place was necessary to ascertain the safety operational standards of the airports and we are satisfied with the progress and commitment of critical stakeholders in the whole arrangement”.

Read Also: FAAN conducts simulation exercise in Abuja airport ahead of flight resumption

“I’m particularly thrilled by the use of robots to profile passengers and the use of facemasks by passengers for security checks and identification during the flight which showed that the industry was fully determined to provide world standard practice in maintaining first class safety guards at our airports as we gradually reopen some airports to unlock the economy.”

The House Committee Chair, Nnaji who represents Nkanu East/West Federal Constituency of Enugu State in the House of Representatives assured the Ministry and its agencies of his committee’s support in ensuring that that industry is rejuvenated as soon as possible because of its pivotal role in the stimulation of the economy.

He also stated that his committee will work closely with the Ministry and its agencies to monitor the progress of the entire operations stressing that the success of the first phase of the reopening would determine how soon the entire industry would be unlocked.

He reiterated his call for the quick release of grant promised to the sector by the Federal Government to enable the industry bounce back strongly adding that over three months shutdown of flight operations has taken a devastating impact on all the agencies because over 90 percent of their internally generated revenues were dependent on charges directly or indirectly connected to fight operations.

Nnaji further appealed to citizens who have no businesses to do at the airports to stay away to avoid unnecessary crowding when the airports reopen stressing that “coronavirus is real and we must exercise every precaution to stay safe”.

He stressed: “‘As the nation prepares to gradually open up the air space, Nigerians should be rest assured that the House Committee on Aviation will in line with our oversight mandate, continue to collaborate with the Ministry of Aviation and other critical stakeholders not only to ensure smooth resumption of flight operations but strict observance of safety protocol to contain the pandemic in aviation industry “.

By Kelvin Osa Okunbor

Ahead of domestic travel restart, Air Peace on Wednesday embarked on out of storage test flights for its 25 aircraft.

The exercise which the carrier described as “Shakedown Flights”, according to its spokesman, Stanley Olisa was aimed at ensuring the aircraft are in tip – top condition having been grounded for close to three months under very strict storage maintenance.

Besides, Olisa said the airline embarked on the exercise to demonstrate its strength and readiness to resume operations with the mixed fleet of aircraft; including three wide body Boeing 777 crisis crossing the skyline from Lagos to Abuja, Port Harcourt and back to Lagos without passengers.

Olisa said the shakedown flights were also part of the measures the carrier has developed to guarantee the safety of both passengers and blew when operations resume.

Read Also: lAir Peace donates food items to indigent families in Lagos

He said the aircraft have been in storage mode for a couple of months and extensive maintenance checks have been carried out to keep them up to the required standards.

According to Olisa: “Within this period of flight ban, we have ramped up technical maintenance of all our aircraft, scaled up cabin refresh and carried out thorough disinfection to ensure they remain fit for the skies when the authorities flag off operations”.

He added that the aircraft are now being brought out of storage and the pilots have been testing them, stressing that all pilots and flight attendants have been retrained in line with NCAA directives.

On the airline’s readiness to resume regular flights, he stated: “As you know, we have been operating ‘special flights’ to local and international destinations, and we have more of such flights in the works. This accentuates our preparedness for operation restart as our pilots, cabin crew and engineers have been hands-on and are very current. So, we are hundred percent ready to resume”.

Air Peace has been operating charter and evacuation flights to various international destinations even as the flight ban persists. In April, the airline delivered Federal Government’s medical supplies from Turkey and China to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

It has also operated several evacuation flights to India, Israel and China in the last two months.

By Kelvin Osa Okunbor

Dana Air on Wednesday carried out a dry run at the Murtala Muhammed Airport 2 (MMA2) and shakedown flights from Lagos to Port Harcourt and back.

According to a statement by the airline’s Media and Communications Manager, Kingsley Ezenwa, Dana Air had to carry out the exercise to demonstrate its readiness to resume flights as soon as the airspace is open.

“Although all through the lockdown, we had our engineers on ground to ensure proper storage and steady maintenance of our fleet for resumption at any time, and as part of our post-covid resumptions plans, we had to get our team fully on ground on Wednesday for a dry run at the MMA2 terminal under the supervision of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA)”.

“After a successful dry run, we conducted shakedown flights from Lagos to Port Harcourt with our newly acquired Boeing and MD aircraft in our fleet.

Read Also: COVID-19: Dana Air offers FG resources, aircraft to transport relief materials

He noted that “uncertainty is a normal sentiment among travelers and we had to carry out the dry run and shakedown flights strictly to guarantee the safety of our staff and valued customers. For us, following guidelines and standards is priority and our customers can rest assured that as restrictions are lifted, all we will be offering our guests is peace of mind on every flight.”

On Dana Air’s level of preparedness, Ezenwa said “Dana Air is 100 per cent ready so is MMA2 and some other terminals we operate from. All Personal Protective Equipment have been made available for all staff, crew and passengers who might not come around with one.”

“All Recommended training, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for all staff have been updated and concluded.  All our aircraft are fitted with HEPA filters which filter 99.9 per cent of unwanted particles and viruses in the air. It also helps passengers breathe normally.  All aircraft in our fleet have also been disinfected as recommended by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and we have an optimised cleaning protocol to provide all-round peace of mind for our guests.”

”We advise our guests to get to the airport at least 2 hours to their flights and also explore all our innovative online and self-booking platforms available at MMA2.

“As a customer- centric airline, we are also working on user-friendly booking and reservation processes which will guarantee social distancing and seamless travel for our guests”

“We wish to also commend the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) for the progress made so far, by being proactive, meticulous and engaging the stakeholders in the interest of the airlines, service providers,  agencies, staff, customers and overall interest of the economy at large”, Ezenwa added.

By Kelvin Osa Okunbor

British carrier, Virgin Atlantic Airways said on Monday that it will resume flights on the Lagos/London route effective August 24, 2020.

According to the airline’s Manager, Marketing and Communications – Nigeria, Promise Ukandu , the new date will provide connections to a range of destinations in the United States.

However, the airline said restart of flights into Lagos and other routes will be dependent on lifting of travel restrictions around the world.

Juha Jarvinen, Chief Commercial Officer, Virgin Atlantic said : “As countries around the world begin to relax travel restrictions, we look forward to welcoming our customers back onboard and flying them safely to many destinations across our network. From 20th July we will resume services to New York, Los Angeles and Hong Kong then from 1st August onwards, we will resume passenger flying to 17 additional destinations around the world including Lagos, Tel Aviv, Atlanta, Mumbai and Las Vegas.”

“However, we are monitoring external conditions extremely closely, in particular the travel restrictions many countries have in place including the 14 day quarantine policy for travellers entering the UK.

Read Also: Why domestic flights cannot resume yet, by FG

“We know that as the COVID-19 crisis subsides, air travel will be a vital enabler of the UK’s economic recovery. Therefore, we are calling for UK Government to continually review its quarantine measures and instead look at a multi-layered approach of carefully targeted public health and screening measures, including air bridges, which will support a successful and safe restart of international air travel for passengers and businesses.”

He said the airline has taken the difficult decision to cancel some services for the remainder of the summer 2020 season and seasonal services from Glasgow and Belfast to Orlando will resume for selected dates in summer 2021.

He said: “We will continue to monitor our network on an ongoing basis and expect further flights from London Heathrow and Manchester to resume in September and October 2020.

To ensure the health and safety of our customers and our people, Virgin Atlantic is implementing additional measures to offer peace of mind in the airport and when taking to the skies.

“These include enhanced and thorough cleaning practices at check in, boarding gates and onboard including the use of electrostatic spraying of high-grade disinfectant onboard in all our cabins and lavatories, ensuring no surface is left untouched.

“Safe distancing will also be adhered to wherever possible, particularly at check-in and boarding and where not possible, masks will be required. We will provide a personal Health Pack for the wellbeing and comfort of all our customers, which will contain medical grade face masks as a requirement to be worn onboard, surface wipes and hand gel.

“In the short term, to minimise contact, we will also be offering a simplified hot food service in Economy and Premium Economy, enclosed from preparation in a COVID-safe, monitored environment directly to our customers’ seats

“In addition to the restart of passenger flying, Virgin Atlantic continues to operate cargo-only flights keeping global supply chains running and transporting essential supplies around the world.

“Throughout June, the airline plans to operate more than 600 cargo-only services, serving destinations including Tel Aviv, Chicago, Brussels, Johannesburg, Lagos and Miami.”

By Kelvin Osa Okunbor

Stakeholders in the Nigerian aviation industry have kicked against the continuous use of foreign airlines by the Federal Government for evacuation of the country’s citizens despite local capacity.

They said the development was creating wrong impression about Nigeria and safety of its carriers.

Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), the umbrella body of indigenous carriers in the country said the continued use of foreign airlines to evacuate Nigerians by the government was contrary to its own directive that only indigenous carriers should be used to do so.

The Executive Chairman of AON, Captain Nogie Meggison in an interview with aviation correspondents on Monday at the Lagos Airport said that the onus still lies on government to do the right thing by protecting its own carriers, as COVID-19 fears forced government to bring back stranded Nigerians abroad.

The airline operators stated that almost on a daily basis, Emirates evacuates Nigerians from Dubai, revealing that the airlift is being negotiated and advertised by the Nigerian embassy in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), thus defying government’s directive that only Nigerian carriers should evacuate Nigerians as many other countries are doing.

Read Also: Aviation loses N63b to COVID-19

He insisted that Nigerian airlines have the capacity to successfully execute such an exercise.

“I have worked in this industry for the past 35 years and we keep saying the same thing and that is why we are not moving forward. If the government did not give foreign carriers landing permits to evacuate Nigerians from other countries and land in Nigeria, they won’t do that. If you can’t put your house in order who else will do that for you? We just make laws and policies but we don’t have the political will to carry out what we have said.

“We see these flights coming in everyday and we ask ourselves why? Can you fly into Ghana or other countries if you don’t have landing permits? So we need to first put our house in order for things to work the way we want. I keep wondering why our airports are still not open for operations. Aviation is a major propeller of the economy. I keep wondering what is delaying the opening of our airspace,” Meggison said.

Also speaking on the issue, a member of Aviation Round Table (ART), a think-tank group in the industry, Engr. Sheri Kyari said that the negation of government directive by a government agency shows lack of synergy in governance and also lack of respect for the central authority.

Kyari emphasised that such actions attract opprobrium to the country.

“This is giving us a very bad image in international community that our airlines are not safe, which is not true. This is a very wrong impression. Secondly, it’s like connivance against the country to make sure that economically, we are not standing; when what is supposed to be our own and people are ganging up to make sure that we don’t get it. It is a bad one.

“The issue of ‘you do me I do you’ has come out to play, but we are weak in one particular area, which is alliances. This is one of those things that the mega carriers are using against us by denying us the facilities. Having said that; the major area is for the federal government to step in and put their feet down. Ensure that our carriers are protected,” Kyari said.

The federal government made it as a rule before it renewed the evacuation of Nigerians that only indigenous airlines should airlift Nigerians abroad.

It took the decision after meetings with the National Assembly.