Thursday, November 20, 2014

‘Why Nigeria may not design or manufacture commercial aircraft’

An aviation expert has attributed the absence of a Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul facilities (MRO) in the country to the reason Nigeria cannot design and manufacture commercial aircraft capable of conveying one hundred passengers and above in the next decade. This was made known in a paper presented at a seminar in Lagos by Dr Titus Olaniyi, a special resource person at the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Zaria.

Presenting the paper entitled: The imperative of building a sustainable aircraft maintenance hangar in Nigeria, Olaniyi declared that it would not be feasible to achieve that feat of aircraft designing and manufacturing in the country in the next 10 years but declared that the country’s aviation must begin to sustainably operate, maintain and assemble in the progressive order.

According to Dr Olaniyi, the MRO facility in Uyo was a viable step in the right direction to achieve such feat, adding that once it was completed, the facility would become a national hangar that could accommodate two B747 – 400 or six B737 in a closed air conditioned space.

This, he said, would require the services of technically capable human resources that would provide high quality maintenance services needed, stressing that the MRO in Uyo should consider collaboration first with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and later with third party suppliers in order to strategically upgrade the facility to an assembly plant and later collaborate with manufacturers.

Olaniyi called for the imitation of planning and policy frame work inclusive of its implementation strategies that would encourage the establishment of MRO for protecting the Nigerian aviation industry and its workforces.

He noted that the current Nigeria aviation policy required a paradigm shift, adding that its current format opened doors uncontrollably to foreign operators at the expense of the indigenous market.

According to Dr Olaniyi, this is a result of the inadequate negotiation skills, suspicious or gross malicious of people conducting Bilateral Agreement on behalf of Nigeria.

- Source: http://www.tribune.com.ng

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