Allen Onyema: Tinubu, Keyamo Revolutionising Nigeria’s Aviation, CTC Will Aid Interconnectivity, Lower Airfares

The Chief Executive Officer of Air Peace, Allen Onyema, has said that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu made the best choice in appointing Festus Keyamo as the Minister for Aviation and Aerospace Development, as he said Keyamo is revolutionalising Nigeria’s aviation sector, making it easier for local airlines.

Onyema said this in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Sunday where he discussed the benefits of Nigeria signing the Cape Town Convention (CTC) Practice Directions for the aviation sector, saying that it will reduce the price of airfares, as well as interconnect Nigeria, which will in turn cause a revolution in the economy.

The airline CEO expressed his appreciation to President Tinubu, saying, “What he has done is nothing short of revolutionary. This is revolution, nothing short of revolution. It has never happened before to us. By midwifing the signing of this practice direction, he has kind of helped the airlines- the local airlines now to up their capacity.”

He then said, “I said sometime ago and I told Mr. President when he invited me for Iftar, I told him, I said the ease of doing business in the Aviation sector has come back, thanks to the kind of appointment you made. Festus Keyamo is nothing short of awesome. Keyamo is causing a revolution. I told Mr. President there that when people were criticising Keyamo for going to Airbus, on the sideline, whatever they were doing there was just… the main thing that took him to Airbus was this kind of thing.

“It took him to Boeing three weeks ago, Air Peace was there with him in America, he was brokering all these… I told Mr. President that at the end of the day, you will celebrate making this guy your aviation minister. Festus Keyamo has been in the trenches out there trying to get this thing sorted, midwifed it, and the vice-president was there to make sure everything happened.”

Onyema spoke of the significance of the signing of the CTC practice directions, which he said will allow for Nigerian airlines to dry lease aircraft, explaining that other countries do not buy their aircraft outright, but they lease these aircraft from the manufacturing companies via leasing financial companies who finance the acquisitions and lease the aircrafts back to the airlines for a number of years. However, in Nigeria, one has to buy the aircraft outright.

“The money we use to buy one brand new plane can get me about 50 or 40 aircrafts on dry lease,” he revealed.

However, Onyema said, “With the signing of this practice direction now, it means the leasing world now will start leasing aircrafts to Nigeria.”

Shedding more light on the benefits that dry leasing of aircraft will bring to Nigeria, Onyema said, “If I spent $80 million buying one of my brand new planes, I ordered 13 of the E2095, 5 have already come in… The amount of money expended on that 5 will give me about 200 aircraft. So, I don’t need to amass so much money now to start acquiring planes.

“If every Nigerian – the least of Nigerian airlines, those with five planes or three planes, those with their three planes, the cost of acquiring those three aircraft, whether used or brand new, even used ones, could afford them 20 or 30 aircraft.”

He then revealed that this act will help to lower airfares, saying, “It will help the entire Nigerian airline industry. We acquire this with ease. Now, because you’ve not expended a lot of money, you’re not paying interest at 35% for a huge sum of money, that will affect the bottom line positively, and bring the fare, the prices down appreciably.”

He also said, “This will increase interconnectivity, because you have a lot of planes. You don’t need to come to Abuja or Lagos from Port Harcourt to go to Kano. When you have so many plane flying, you can to do Port-Harcourt-Kano direct. You can do Calabar-Enugu, you can do Enugu to Ilorin. You can do Yola to Maidiguri because you will be able to acquire the type of aircraft that will give you such stretch.”

He continued,“The president has caused a revolution in the economy already with this. Once we move in, we are going to interconnect this country, we are going to open up this country, and that is opening up the economy, agric products will find their ways to the cities and other places.

“How about the west coast? We are going to dominate the entire West Coast and Central Africa. The resilience of the average Nigerian entrepreneur will not be called into question. What the President has done now was to give us that platform to explode. You will see what is going to happen,” Onyema said.

Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi