The liquidation of many domestic airlines has thrown an estimated 600 pilots and aircraft engineers into the jobs market. But experts raise the hope that the coming of a new national carrier and other interventions will address the challenge, reports Correspondent KELVIN OSA OKUNBOR.
AFTER spending fortunes to train as pilots and aircraft engineers, many of the 544 licensed Nigerian pilots and 913 engineers are jobless. No thanks to the failure of indigenous airlines.
The high rate of unemployment among the pilots and engineers is worrisome to stakeholders in the aviation sector, as efforts by the Federal Government to compel foreign carriers to engage Nigerian pilots has not yielded the right results.
There was a proclamation by government in 2014 that foreign carriers flying into Nigeria must have at least a local pilot and aircraft engineers in their crew.
The Nation learnt that a whooping N10 million is required to train and be certified as a pilot or an aircraft engineer at the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria in Kaduna State and International Aviation College (IAC) in Ilorin, Kwara State.
But, the closures of many domestic airlines due to mismanagement and inclement operational environment have created a glut of manpower in the industry.
Ironically, as Nigeria suffers a glut of pilots, countries in Middle East and Far East are in dire need of pilots to meet up with the growth in their aviation sector.
Major aircraft manufacturer – Boeing had projected that more than 248,000 new pilots would be needed to drive the growth of air transportation with China in Asia – Pacific region leading the pack.
In Nigeria, industry stakeholders – the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE), NCAT and IAC, are worried by the redundancy of experienced hands and lack of practical training fields for up-coming ones.
According to a statistics by NCAA, there are 554 pilots and over 913 aircraft engineers with valid Nigerian licence.
Operators of many of the domestic carriers that could have hired the armies of the associate pilots have closed shops, leaving only seven.
The existing operators are: Air Peace; Medview Airline; Dana Air; Arik Air; Aero Airline; A2MAN Air and Overland Airways.
Pilots, who command flights and engineers, who fix the aircraft are the first set of casualties whenever an airline collapses.
According to global statistics, Nigerian ranks high among the nations where experienced and fresh pilots scramble for non-existent jobs, whereas in China would require 5,000 pilots yearly in the next two decades to cope with its ever-growing aviation industry.
There are reports that many Chinese carriers are shopping for experienced pilots to address the shortage.
The dearth of insufficient flying hours, type rating and up-to-date training, among other requirements critical for job placement, may have shut out the products of Nigeria’s aviation colleges.
But NAAPE is not folding its arms on the development. Its President Abednego Galadima said the body is designing a template to facilitate the engagement of unemployed pilots.
He put the number of unemployed pilots and aircraft engineers in the neighbourhood of 600, a development he described as unacceptable and must therefore be addressed to tackle the challenge of ageing workforce in the sector.
Galadima spoke of NAAPE’s plans to partner NCAT for associate pilots to earn enough flying hours and put them in good stead for employment.
He said: “At some point, we have a case where we have over 200-250 unemployed associate pilots. Pilots and engineers put together, the number is increasing to around 600 professionals that are not employed and this is not good for the industry.
“This is a big problem. You know the unemployment rate in the country. This one is particularly a problem, because these two professions require you to be current and most of the pilots and engineers were trained with huge sums. So, the investment will just be lost if they do not retain currency, because they will not be employable again without currency.”
Galadima called on the government to initiate a scheme that will provide a window for unemployed pilots to get further training to make them marketable.
He said: “That is why we are advocating that the government do something. In fact, we have put in a proposal to a number of our partners; we are still looking for more partners to fund it; just like what the government is doing for the unemployed through the N-Power programme.
“If that can be extended to aviation, NAAPE is willing to partner with anybody. If NCAT is given some money, the young pilots will go and build hours flying aircraft there and also use simulator as well. It will help them build more hours to gather more experience and expertise.”
“For the engineers too, we are putting a scheme in place in that proposal, where these people can be deployed in aviation entities where we have senior engineers that will take them through on-the-job training and guide them properly.
“These are the things we are doing. We are approaching the Ministry of Transportation (Aviation Section) with Local Content Development Board. We will approach Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF), Industrial Training Fund (ITF) and appeal to their conscience.”
He said the proposed national carrier will also create a window for the unemployed pilots and aircraft engineers.
The NAAPE chief said: “If the National Carrier comes up, it will be a plus to us. While the airline will absorb some pilots and aircraft engineers, it is our hope that some of the unemployed will find somewhere to fit in.
“Government is talking about five aircraft to start the operation. You know that it will require a minimum of 50 pilots.”
Why pilots are jobless
Explaining why many pilots are unemployed, NCAT Rector Captain Abdulsalami Mohammed said that local pilots seek to operate commercial airlines after training.
He urged newly trained pilots to seek to fly private airplanes, including sortie aircraft and others under General Aviation to gain experience before applying to operate commercial airlines.
Abdulsalami said a large number of pilots with valid licenses cannot get jobs because they tend to seek for jobs with commercial airlines that would rather demand for experienced pilots than to employ those without experience and needs to be type-rated.
According to the NCAT captain, working with general aviation is the practice, adding: “Unemployed pilots is a subject that is dear to me because every day I get a call from someone who wants his son employed or I get a question on why would I bother to come out and train as a pilot when there are no jobs.
“As you know, we have many unemployed young pilots in the market and the airlines are reluctant to employ and train them because they claim that when you train some of them they run away.”
The Chairman of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), Captain Nogie Meggison, described the rising unemployment rate as alarming.
He said besides the 100 pilots trained by the Kano State Government a few years ago in Jordan, about 400 other pilots are unemployed, including ex-agitators from the Niger Delta Region trained under the Federal Government Amnesty Programme.
Medview Airlines’ Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Muneer Bankole said the unemployment of local pilots could be traced to the 2014 liquidation of the former national carrier – the Nigeria Airways Limited (NAL).
According to him, the liquidation closed the window training and type-rating for fresh pilots.
Bankole said that if NAL was not liquidated, many pilots would have been gainfully absorbed to get the requisite experience.
Urging the authorities to address the drift, Meggison cautioned that the growing unemployment among pilots could hinder the growth of the Nigerian aviation industry.
He flayed the influx of foreign pilots and engineers into the industry. According to him, there are no fewer than 1,000 foreign pilots engaged by both local and foreign registered airlines and over 500 foreign aircraft engineers employed in the country.
Way forward
Meggison is pushing for the creation of an enabling policy that would check the influx of foreign pilots and engineers into Nigeria to check the high unemployment rate.
He insisted that some domestic carriers have done well by engaging some of the pilots.
Meggison said: “The government should compel foreign carriers to set up a line station for aircraft maintenance in the country and employ local engineers to assist in turning around the growth of the sector. They should look into other avenues also. If policies are not put in place, the challenge of unemployment of pilots and engineers may not be resolved as soon as possible.
“It is shameful that Nigerian licensed youth pilots are now driving kabu kabu (taxis) to make ends meet. This is totally unacceptable. Not that there are no jobs, but jobs are taken over by foreigners in the country.”
Like Meggison, Captain Dele Ore, a pilot and former Commander of the country’s Presidential Fleet, described the high unemployment rate as sordid.
Blaming the trend on the absence of a well-thought-out government policy, Ore lamented that the development has created a room for foreigners to dictate the place in the aviation industry.
Insisting that the government cannot force the local airlines to hire Nigerians at a time some of them face hard times and struggle to survive, Ore advocated a ‘deliberate government policy’ that would encourage airlines to ensure that a Nigerian passport holder sits on the cockpit of every aircraft flying in the country’s airspace.
To Bankole, one way to solve the problem is for the government to compel airline operators to embark on training and retraining of young professionals. The CEO of Medview Airlines declared that though training and type-rating of pilots would improve employment generation for the industry; most of the indigenous carriers are not interested in training of technical personnel, but rather prefer to engage in poaching from other airlines.
“However, in order to solve this problem,” he said, “the government should ask individual airlines to come together and advise it on how to improve the sector. We need commitment from individual carriers on manpower development for us to grow the sector.”
An expert who pleaded for anonymity, said: “As at today, becoming a pilot from the scratch costs nothing less than $250,000 and one would have expected that immediately after graduating from the flying school, either in Nigeria or overseas, they would automatically get jobs, but that is not the case. As the country’s aviation is shrinking, China, Europe and the United States are in dire need of pilots.
“The disadvantage of this is that most of these airlines, based abroad, are looking for pilots who already have hundreds of hours under their belt and are reluctant to retrain pilots that have been out of jobs for years or have never been employed.”
About a year ago, Chinese airlines began massive demand for pilots as they needed to hire almost 100 pilots a week for the next 20 years to meet growing travel demand. Facing a shortage of candidates at home, carriers dangled lucrative pay packages at foreigners with cockpit experience.
Investigations reveal that the near collapse of General Aviation in the country has also compounded the woes of these pilots. General Aviation (GA) is the term for all civil aviation operations other than scheduled air services and non-scheduled air transport operations for remuneration or hire.
GA flights range from gliders and powered parachutes to corporate business jet flights. The majority of the world’s air traffic falls into this category. Most of the world’s airports serve GA exclusively.
They cover a range of activities, both commercial and non-commercial, including flying clubs, flight training, agricultural aviation, light aircraft manufacturing and maintenance.
Also worrisome is the fact that Nigeria’s wealthy elite prefer to hire foreign pilots to fly their private jets. Reason: Nigerian pilots fresh from aviation school have between 300 and 400 flight hours’ experience while there is a preference by employers for pilots with between 1,200 and 1,700 flight hours, for understandable safety reasons.
An expert said: “The foreign pilots deemed to have the required flight hours were given time and opportunity to do so. Why should it be different for Nigerian pilots? The question is, how can they accumulate such hours when they have not been given the opportunity to fly?
“Not only the exorbitant cost, in Nigeria, there is another great hurdle; how do you get the required number of flight hours required for the next level after you have obtained your Commercial Pilot License? When the pilot has obtained this license, he is expected to go for type rating; that is specialising in a particular aircraft type. It is after that time he could be employed as a flight officer.
“In Nigeria, the challenge is there is no platform for the person who has a Commercial Pilot License to type-rate on any particular aircraft. Such platform was provided by the defunct NAL, which actually trained most Nigerian pilots that operate today in different parts of the world.”
South Africa Airways, Kenya Airways, Ethiopia Airlines, Air Maroc and Egypt Air are some of the major national carriers in the continent that churn out trained pilots every year. They also provide them the aircraft for type rating before they start flying as flight officers.
Ethiopia and Kenya supply the Middle East and others pilots and other aviation personnel because they have successful training academy that have lasted for years and they latch on their national airlines, which provide the platform for the trained pilots to garner flight
Chief Executive Officer, Aero Contractors, Captain Ado Sanusi noted that local airlines employ seasoned and expatriate pilots for many reasons.
Besides, their reliability, Sanusi said that young indigenous pilots hardly stay with the airline that trained them long enough to justify the resources expended on their training.
He said that cannot be reluctant to engage a pilot with only 250 flight hours.
Sanusi explained: “In developed countries, if you finish with 250 hours, you don’t go to airlines; you go to flying school till you get 1,500 hours before you start coming to fly for airlines. It is when you get Airline Pilot License (APL) before you even come to fly for an airline.
“But, we take them with commercial pilot license, with very low hours, we train them or let us say they even trained themselves, they come to us with very low hours, 250 hours and 300 hours.
“Taking a trainee pilot with that number of hours will increase the airline’s insurance premium because the airline is using inexperienced and low time co-pilot. The increasing insurance premium will put a lot of stress on the aircraft because they are going to be doing training and everything. And when the pilot becomes proficient, then he now says I am paying him small remuneration and he leaves.
“When you come in with low flying hours, you pay the airline to gain up to 500 and 1000 hours on the type of the aircraft. But now, I am bringing you in, giving you this training on the aircraft, giving you the opportunity to have this experience, without government incentive to the airline and I am a privately owned company, I am doing business purely on profit basis; I am not doing it on charity.
“Then after you have been trained and I have paid a highinsurance premium; after I have suffered a lot on my landing gear because of hard landings that pilots do while training; after I have suffered all that expense in maintenance of the aircraft and other expenses, you now say, I am paying you a little, so, you want to leave me and go to another airline.”
Meggison the disturbing growth in the unemployment rate among indigenous but qualified pilots informed his decision to gather them under the auspices of Nigerian Professional Pilots (NPP).
“I set up this platform for young pilots who haven’t found jobs as common pool where employers can tap from. It also provides them the opportunity to come together and get acquainted with developments in the aviation sector,” Meggisson said.
He said that no fewer than 170 license pilots have been registered by NPP, adding that they meet regularly.
Meggison said: “The awareness will also tell industry operators there is a pool of young pilots they can draw from rather than engaging expatriate pilots alone. If we do not address ingenious pilots’ unemployment, soon we would be shocked with what has hit us.
“So, we are looking at opportunities of engaging the government on how best we can reduce pilot unemployment, one of which is to create a better aviation environment for local skills.”
A pilot with Bristow Helicopters Nigeria Limited, Captain Akin Oni, attributed the pilots’ predicament to their inability to pass competence tests and low quality training from overseas training institutions as part of the reasons why many indigenous pilots are unable to secure employment in the aviation sector.
A data obtained from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) shows that the number of expatriate pilots in the country had dropped from 631 in 2016 to 609 by 2017.
The number of licensed pilots operating in the country rose from 2,226 in 2016 to 2,356 in 2017.
The pilots are engaged by passenger and cargo airlines, five helicopter companies and other charter airlines.
Aviation security consultant and Secretary-General of the Aviation Safety Round Table Initiative, Group Capt. John Ojikutu (rtd), however, stated that the drop in the number of expatriate pilots was still negligible, considering the number of Nigerian pilots who needed jobs.
“We can’t say we have achieved much until it drops by at least 30 to 50 per cent. Until it drops further, it will not make any sense,” he said.
Insisting that many unemployed Nigerian pilots roam the streets, Ojikutu said: “There are quite a lot of pilots hanging around, but most of these airlines bring in these expatriates not because of anything, but for capital flight. That figure that shows their number is reducing may be true but is it reasonable enough? The difference is still not much.
“If in 2016 we had over 600 and in 2017, it reduced to 500, it means about 100 of them have left, that would have been better. The onus is on the airlines; if we really want to have more Nigerian pilots, they should absorb them.
“But to absorb them most times, the airlines ask them to go for type-rating with their money and where will many of them get between $100,000 and $200,000 for that from? These are people who are looking for jobs.”
He stated that in the days of NAL, the government sponsored the training of many pilots, a responsibility, which he noted many domestic airlines had refused to take.
“The entire pilots, who were trained by the Nigeria Airways, were quickly employed by other airlines when it was liquidated; they are now old and there is no space for more pilots and because of that, airlines go out to get expatriates. They bring them in, pay them in dollars rather than absorb and train Nigerian pilots.”
NCAA spokesman Sam Adurogboye urged the government to come up with a policy that will mandate foreign airlines to engage indigenous pilots as crew members.
