‘The state of a nation’s airport can determine the state of its economy’

Bankole Bernard is the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Finchglow Travels Limited/FCm Nigeria and President of the National Association for Nigerian Travel Agents (NANTA). In an interview with Ifeoma Okeke, he speaks of some of the challenges facing the Aviation and Tourism sector and the best ways to handle these challenges so as to experience an effective and efficient operation in year 2017.

How have travel agencies in Nigeria been able to survive amid the current economic recession?

In the last one year, it has been difficult for us and we are just an industry in the economy and unfortunately for us, we are an industry that will be completely affected, considering the circumstance of what the economy is going through. Because of the nature of our business, everything is foreign exchange based. Everything that happens in our industry is exchange based and we need foreign exchange for aviation fuel to service aircraft, to pay the crew and to pay government all their charges.

The trend in the past has always been that the industry has constant access to foreign exchange but unfortunately for the industry, there has been a major decline in the foreign exchange reserve of the country as a result of drop in prices of oil. So, it affected the country and automatically affected the industry and because the industry is extremely important to the economic growth, it will affect it more than any other industry.

This means that the airlines will no longer keep to their commitment, the regulatory bodies will suffer in terms of revenue collected and we will not have access to as much inventory as we used to. It means that some airlines will withdraw and inventory will reduce. Cost of travel will increase; those are the elements of all the things that have affected us.

How do you see infrastructure in Nigeria’s international airports?

Our dilapidated infrastructure in the aviation industry before became worse because there is no foreign exchange to service some of those things anymore. It is a problem that degenerated into several other problems and that is why we have been telling the government to take drastic steps to address the situation. With the level of experience I have, all I need to do is get to the international airport of any country and I can tell you if that economy is doing well or not.

It is from the look of the airport that can tell whether an economy is doing well or not. When you pay attention to aviation, it means that all the facilities that will drive foreign direct investment are taken care of. The perception a tourist or investor coming into a country for the first time will have is from the country’s airport. If investors get to an airport and finds out that everything is working, they will understand that that economy is thriving, even if it looks bad, they believe it is just a matter of time, it will pick up again.

But when they see collapsed infrastructures at the airport, it gives them an idea of what the economy is and they are not willing to invest in it. All developed countries such as America, Dubai, Kenya, South Africa, amongst others do not joke with their aviation industry. What the government needs to do if they want business to thrive in our country is to first look at our aviation sector and put it in a very good shape. This way, tourism will now start to thrive.

Do you see a possibility of Iberia and United Airlines coming back to Nigeria if the right policies are implemented?

If the right policies are in place, not only will these airlines come back, more will also join. It was just few days ago that I was reading in the newspaper that Abuja runway will be shut down for six weeks. That runway has been long overdue and it has damaged many aircraft and nothing was done. That is what we are talking about. The government should show commitment to the industry. It is a nightmare going through our airport. So, we here are constantly working to draw government’s attention to that industry that requires their full attention.

How did you receive the news of Aero’s resumption and what will be the impact on your operations?

I am delighted about it. What is going on now is that fact that the government realise that we need to have more domestic players and we need to support Aero to bring it back to life so that an airline that has existed for thirty years will not just die like that. I went to Monrovia few days back and they were delighted to have Medview come to their country because they didn’t have alternative before now. They are all suffering. They wait for days to travel. A man that sat next to me told me that to Fly Emirates from Accra, he has to go from Sierra-Leon to Accra and by the time he was landing in Accra, he had missed his flight because it is only Medview that was flying. West Africa is depending on us to live up to expectation so that their lives can be a lot better. Aero coming back will reduce the hardship that people are going through. For us as travel agents, it increases our inventories automatically. We now have more airlines plying the routes around.

What strategies did you adopt during this recession period to stay afloat?

We realised that this was no longer going to be business as usual. It was going to be one tough year. In the aviation industry, there is what is called in-bound and out-bound. So, all these years our focus has been outbound because nobody comes to talk to you about tourist business in Nigeria. We recommend other countries. There is always outbound and that is when we see people either for business or spend their holiday. We have started recommending to travellers what we have locally. We are telling them how they can spend their holidays locally. A lot of states are putting things in place and we are hopeful that domestic tourism will grow. We are working with a lot of states government.

Can you briefly access the Minister of State, Aviation?

I do not want us to judge a book by its cover. We need to really understand what the plan of the government is. The idea is a laudable one, it is just the management and implementation that determines whether we will get results or not. The same thing applies to airport concession. It is the implementation that matters. Besides if the airport was not concessioned, we will not have MM2 and people are benefiting from it today. I think the minister knows what he is doing and I think he is on the right part. So we all need to work closely with him and give him all the relevant support. The good thing is that he is coming from the industry and he understands the industry well. He also knows all the players in the industry.

Do you think aviation or transportation should stand alone as a sector, other than merging it as one sector?

I know the federal government was trying to cut cost and that was why aviation was merged. Everywhere around the world, we see different ministers with different portfolios. So, what really matters is government’s attention towards it. I am of the opinion that if aviation is merged with tourism, we will get the full benefits of it because it will be under one supervision and someone will drive it effectively and efficiently.

Ifeoma Okeke