Annual Pilgrimage And How To Reduce The Hemorrhage Of Our Scarce Foreign Exchange And How To Reduce The Hemorrhage Of Our Scarce Foreign Exchange

Two years ago, I wrote on this thread and published in the leadership and the nation newspapers on a subject I titled "National carrier as national pride and a venture for economic growth." In the said paper, I made an in depth study on how foreign airlines have been bleeding our economic with the kind of money they make which has contributed immensely to capital flight thereby draining our foreign exchange and foreign reserves. In 2013 alone, foreign airlines made the sum of N400b on sales of tickets a lone.

My point of concentration today is centered on 2016 pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia and Israel as we were missing action in the airlifting of pilgrims because only foreign airlines were on parade raking in millions of dollars for their economies since we have no national carrier. In the same paper, I referred to which is photographed below, the amount foreign airlines scooped from the economy in 2012 from hajj pilgrimage in Saudi was N13b from purchase of tickets alone, while in the same year, the pilgrimage to Israel took away N4.6b from the economy.

It's based on the sizable amount taken away from the annual pilgrimage that informed this post. I'm now linking it with the promise by PMB that he was going to establish a national carrier that will enable the nation take its share in the global aviation industry.

As soon he took over power, PMB constituted a committee of expert to work out modalities of establishing national carrier. We are almost 2 years in his tenure and the promised airline is yet to take off.

In View of the need to generate revenue from other sources to beef up our the dwindling resources from oil, stop the hemorrhage of the scarce foreign exchange and grow the economy by generating employment opportunities from such a venture, it has become imperative to enjoin the government to fast rack the establishment of such a viable economic venture to:
1 capture the already existing annual pilgrimage which could bring to the proposed airline about N17b from hajj operations alone.

2 capture the lucrative the Dubai route which a sum of N25b was made by foreign airlines in the purchase of tickets alone in 2013. Capture other lucrative routes such as Britain, South Africa and USA with the appropriate management by the new airline.

3 if the proposed national airlines could capture 60% of potential passengers inflow of the lucrative routes mentioned with the pilgrimages, I have no doubt in my mind that the airline will be viable and sustainable.

Skeptics and cynics would dismiss the thoughts as purely academic as the national carrier will be dead on arrival because of our penchant for poor management and legendary corruption. Their reservation is informed on the incompetent management of Nigeria airways that died prematurely.

These cynics and critics have a point, but the promoters of the new venture could understudy the Dubai Emirates model for adoption to avoid failure. The Emirates airline success story could be summarize thus. The initial CEO and other critical staff were foreigners, in fact the MD was one time the MD of BA. 

Government had no hand in the running of the airline as it is purely ran as private company with all the ethics of running a modern business adopted. Off shore loans were secured for the purchase of aircrafts and the loans were being paid until eventually they were cleared and the airline started posting profits, an average annual profit of $1.5b. Recruitment of staff was based on merit as only competent hands with vast knowledge in the aviation industry were brought on board.

Wanted therefore is a new National carrier that will take into account the issues raised, particularly going for the lucrative routes as mentioned above and adopt the Dubai model in its operations and funding.

This is therefore a clarion call to stop the hemorrhage of our scarce resource by foreign airlines and put in place a National carrier that will tap the abundant potential revenue sources in the aviation industry for our growth and development.

Any critical voices in the house on this hypothetical approach to fixing our woes in the aviation industry?

By Fenny J. Fwa