The managing director of the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company (Nahcoaviance), Mr. Kayode Oluwasegun-Ojo has said that the free-trade zone approved for it by the federal government would provide the opportunity for people to bring things to what he described as a “borderless environment.”
Speaking in an interview in Lagos, he said the free-trade-zone which would be located at the international wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, would benefit the country, nahcoaviance and the aviation industry.
“Besides, it will improve significantly the traffic that comes into Nigeria and enhance the status of Nigeria as an aviation cargo hub and enhance trans-shipment,” he said.
He described the approval of the free-trade zone as a “significant step forward” adding that “there is a subsidiary company which has been put in place…to start operating that free-trade zone.”
Furthermore, Oluwasegun-Ojo said the ground handling firm had embarked on internal and external transformation pointing out that part of the external phase was the commissioning of the ultra-modern warehouse last May.
“By the time we commissioned the warehouse, we realised that we needed to do certain things to enhance the capacity that the warehouse has,” he said.
He further said that before the company was privatized in 2005/2006, it operated like the civil service because the federal government had the controlling equity.
“Before privatisation, the company had 60 per cent government ownership and 40 per cent private ownership, which were the airlines. The 60 per cent being government was dominant. So, the orientation was government and that orientation had to change. So, if we didn’t complete the transformation, we would not be talking about diversification and expansion.
Of all the companies that have been privatised by the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), we dare say that nahcoaviance is the most successful,” said the managing director.
On how the influx of foreign airlines had boosted the company’s operations since 2008, Oluwasegun-Ojo described the company as the “secondary end of the value chain” handling 85 per cent of the international airlines that operate into the country.
“The primary decision to fly an airline is taken by passengers and the primary decision to consign goods is taken by a consignee. We do business with the airlines; we are the business providers and not at the retail end. However, out of the over 30 foreign airlines that come in, we handle 85 per cent of them including their cargoes. Since 2008, a lot of airlines have come in and I would say the same ratio we have been able to maintain in terms of keeping ourselves at the top end,” he said.
“On the outbound passengers, we will still benefit because we are at the secondary end of the market. As far as we still remain a prosperous country of 170 million people who will have the means to fly for leisure, business and education, we are still on the ground as it were to deal with the airlines’ requests.
“In fact…our joy will be to see a lot more of local participation without compromising international standards. Our pride at nahcoaviance is that we are a Nigerian company; we have been working with foreign airlines for 35 years, delivering services in a local context, but with international standard,” he said.
