TheCable

Muneer Bankole, chief executive officer of Med-View Airline, says most operators in the aviation industry are finding it difficult to provide welfare packages and pay salaries to staff.

Bankole urged the federal government to unveil its intervention plans for airlines to mitigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the industry.

He also called on the government to reopen the airspace for flight operations in the next few weeks, starting with domestic flights.

“When you fly 200 hours, there are certain checks you do. When you increase that to 400 hours, there are certain checks you need to do again,” NAN quoted him to have said.

“Also, when you don’t fly again, you still need to carry out some checks on your aircraft because corrosion will set in and some of the pilots’ licences would have expired by now.

“Aviation industry in general demands for a window. You can see the effect the current pandemic has had on the aviation industry globally.”

According to Bankole, 90% of staff in the aviation industry are at home.

Bankole said the industry needed palliatives to bring life back to it, saying that 90 per cent of workers were at home now.

He further advocated more investments in maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) to save cost for the operators in the country.

“In light of all these, we have been shouting of basic things like the provision of MRO. Local MRO companies like Aero should now be encouraged with a little investment,” he said.

“This will save operators a lot of embarrassment. Instead of carrying our aircraft outside the country for maintenance and doing it in dollars, we can easily do it here in Nigeria.”