As competitors, domestic airlines, which strive for chunks of the Nigerian air travel market, are naturally rivals. But over the years it has been established that one of the major problems bedeviling the industry is the unhealthy competition among the airlines.
The airlines have at various times adopted unscrupulous ways to de-market one another. In the past, it was alleged that some airlines would pay to ensure that their rivals’ operations were hampered. Besides striving to win customers, the rivalry among these airlines is exacerbated by poaching, whereby pilots who work for a particular airline leaves the airline for another after the former employer had spent huge amount of money to train him.
The airlines feel embittered when they lose their pilots and this means spending more money to secure another pilot to replace him. Last week, the CEO of Medview Airline, Alhaji Muneer Bankole expressed the regret that his airline lost about eight pilots to Air Peace. Although Bankole said that it gave him happiness that he could train those pilots and they were found worthy by another airline, which employed them. The problem is that not all the airlines are actually spending their money on training. So it is seen as cheating when an airline spends its resources to train a pilot and another one hires him, using increased salary as an incentive.
The challenge is that if every airline begins to wait for another to train so that it would poach, indigenous pilot would not be trained as it has become clear that it is less costly to employ well qualified expatriates who do not need further training than employ Nigerians and train them to grow and become captains. The consequence is that expatriates will fully take over the technical areas of the aviation industry.
What airlines do is that when they want to train a pilot they usually sign bonds with the trainee that after training them they would spend certain number of years with the airline so that it could recoup the money spent on his training or if he chooses to move to another airline he would remit the funds expended on his training.
But bonds are difficult to enforce in Nigeria. An airline operator accused the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) of not helping airlines to enforce bonds and this has made it possible for pilots to leave anytime they want.
Industry expert and pilot, Captain Ado Sanusi, told THISDAY that poaching of pilots is a thing that will continue to happen.
“Outside Nigeria you cannot poach pilots. You have to train your pilots because there is training enforcement. In Nigeria bonding is not effective because it is not enforced by NCAA and in the US you have to train to suit particular airline requirements, so if you wish to move to another airline it is usually under strict compliance by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) which stipulates that you have to undergo another training to meet the new airline’s requirements,” Sanusi said.
Sanusi said in terms of safety, it is dangerous for a pilot to be moving from one airline to another as it is being done in Nigeria, noting that every airline trains its pilots to meet its requirements and standard of safety. This explained why airlines like Ethiopian Airlines, Egypt Air, Kenya Airways and others have their flying schools in order to train pilots and grow those pilots till they become captains and fly for those airlines.
He said because of the poaching of European pilots by Middle East airlines, about seven years ago European carriers introduced multi-crew pilot license in accordance to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) recommendations. This means that the company you are flying for will have to license you and it will be difficult to move from one airline to another because it means going for another long training to obtain another’s license.
THISDAY spoke to the Director General of NCAA, Captain Muhtar Usman, who said that the regulatory body is already working on how to check the high level of poaching in the industry, but noted that the operators need to cooperate and work together in order to stop poaching, using their association like Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON).
“We are also looking at it from the safety angle. The airlines should be able to retain their manpower. If you employ people and train them and you don’t pay them well or as at when due they could move to where they can get better remuneration. If you renege on that NCAA cannot do anything about it. We don’t want to compromise safety; it is accident waiting to happen when you do not pay your pilots and other employees. If you don’t pay your loader he can load the luggage carelessly in the aircraft hold and that can cause accident,” the Director General said.
He said the airlines do not get NCAA involved when they do bonding with the pilots, so the regulatory body cannot enforce the law because it was not involved in it.
An operator told THISDAY that bonds do not work because such agreements usually have exit clauses, which also give the company the power to sack indolent pilots.
“If the pilot wants to leave and you don’t want him to go he can become insubordinate. He can come to your office and urinate on your table, which will leave you with no other choice than to sack him. If the company he is going to work for hears that it would know that he did so because he wanted to leave your company,” the operator said.
He said that Nigerian airlines would prefer to employ expatriates because they are more committed to their job and that is why many Nigerian pilots are not trained by the airlines.
“A Nigerian pilot can delay your flight for two hours. Bonding does not work,” he said.
But if the airlines work together under effective association, they could reach agreement not to recruit pilots working for their members. This will force them to train or employ expatriates. It will also make pilots to be dedicated to their airlines that trained them.
