Fuel contamination incidents shouldn’t be overblown –Okonkwo, United Nigeria COO
The recent incident where large amount of contaminated fuel was found in a Max Airline aircraft has been described as a ‘one off’ incident which should not be blown out of proportion.
In an interview in Lagos recently, the Chief Operating Officer of United Nigeria Airlines, Mazi Osita Okonkwo, said such incidents are not regular occurrences in the industry and that there are airlines that have not had such occurrences.
“I think it’s a one-off thing, it’s not a universal or sector thing, so, we shouldn’t overblow it. It’s an incident that happened, it could have come from the operator or from the marketing, the oil marketing. It’s something that is a one-off and we’ve never experienced it in the two years of operations. My understanding also is that most of these fuelers obtained the fuel from the same source. So, maybe the bowser is the one that has the issue or the point of loading or offloading that creates that kind of problem.
“The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, the operators, the fuelers and the NNPC are all working on that and I don’t think we’ll ever see it again. What it simply means is that we should all be vigilant and all the pre-flight operations or activities must be done by operators, also by fuelers. They can’t assume that once the bowser comes up in the morning that everything is fine, you must do these things. Before the fuel enters your plane, you have to do the normal basic checks. These are standard operating procedures,” he said.
On the rising cost of operations of airlines, he said: “Once there is inflation, costs are going to rise at all levels, operationally, administratively and so on. The unfortunate thing in Nigeria is that we normally have spikes in costs rather than the normal gradual inflationary related costs. We wait until after a long time and then we have an adjustment which becomes very difficult to manage. But we are reacting to it. Obviously, there are some we will absorb directly and there are some we will pass to passengers by adjusting the fares. But, it’s not going to be immediate because we know that the gradual increase is not what people can easily absorb.
“On the issue of the I and E window, these are still early days and the policies and the practices and processes are evolving. But what it has done is that it has promised a level playing field for everybody. There is transparency so you can build in your costs transparently and everybody will see that. In terms of access, I think it’s becoming better and better. The cost is very volatile. But in terms of access, yes, if you want and you can pay, I think you will have access to that. But you have to have the Naira and it is a scarce commodity now.
