Nigeria oldest carrier may have broken a jinx in Nigeria by successfully conducting successful C-check maintenance on a Boeing B737 and this signals that Nigerian airlines may heave a sigh of relief as subsequently they can be conducting their major checks at home and save themselves huge revenues.
Aero on Thursday carried out test flight after conducting C-check on its aircraft at its recently approved Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility at the Murtala Mohammed Airport (MMA), Lagos on its Boeing 737 classics with the registration number 5N-BLG.
According to the CEO of the airline, Captain Ado Sanusi, what was exciting about the successful conduct of the checks was that after the test flight there was no sags noticed on the aircraft, unlike many of such exercise conducted overseas where test flight reveals a lot of snags.
“I am excited about this achievement because when we conduct c-check and do test flight overseas you will notice at least nine to 10 snags and we will spent another three to five days correcting the snags and even when you are coming back with the aircraft you will be noticing snags which is corrected on arrival. But this C-check is so successful that we did not notice any snag, just one little thing that should be adjusted,” Sanusi excitedly said.
He said that the next aircraft to be conducted C-check on, which is another Aero aircraft, has been moved into the hangar. After that there would be another C-check to be conducted on a third party aircraft; that is one owned by another airline.
“The maintenance schedule has been booked for the year. There is no space again for the year,” Sanusi happily said.
It costs the airlines at least $1 million (about N365m) to carry out a comprehensive C-check on their aircraft and sometime it is higher. This is besides the queuing and waiting for slot and the cost of ferrying the aircraft to a facility overseas, the cost of accommodation and allowances for the crew.
A source close to the airline told our correspondent that the engineers commenced work on the aircraft less than a month ago and successfully carried out the check on the aircraft.
Immediately after the comprehensive check on the aircraft, the airline’s pilot and a co-pilot flew the aircraft for verification, which was successful.
Sanusi said that its engineers worked on the aircraft and while it’s pilots successfully carried out verification flight on the airplane.
He explained that the entire management was satisfied with the outcome of the check, stressing that the result of the check was more satisfactory than the checks carried out on their airplanes outside the country.
He said the successful verification of the aircraft was a major milestone not just for the airline, but for the entire aviation industry in Nigeria.
He explained that with such achievement, the era of flying out aircraft for maintenance by Nigerian airlines was over, stressing that the country would benefit a lot from the outcome.
He recalled that the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) had in the last quarter of 2017 approved it’s hangar to carry our C-check on Boeing 737 aircraft, which are mostly used for commercial flight operations by most of the country’s carrier.
As at the last count, no fewer than 24 Boeing 737 aircraft are owened by Nigerian airline operators.
“It’s true that we successfully carried out C-check on one of our aircraft today. After the check, we put the aircraft for verification flight and everyone was very happy about the result. This is the first time this would be happening in the country. Also, I want to tell you that we are more satisfied with the result than what we get outside the country when we take out our airplanes for checks. Our engineers are happy and we are equally satisfied.
“This feat is not just for Aero Contractor, but for the entire industry. We are happy to announce this to the world, ” Sanusi added.
