At the commemoration of its second anniversary recently, Chief Operating Officer of UNA, Osita Okonkwo, recounts the survival strategy of the start-up airline and lessons learnt. He gave a fresh insight into hurdles of the local sector and sundry issues. WOLE OYEBADE was there.
However, those challenges were a blessing in disguise because it gave us time to plan, to know ourselves and to review our plans. At the end of the day, we were able to start, just a few days after we got our AOC. Since then, we have flown every day of the year. We started with four planes, went to six destinations and now we have increased our routes to nine. So far, we have carried close to 800,000 passengers.
The cost component of aviation fuel rapidly jumped from about 30 to 65 per cent of airline revenue within a few months of your operations. How did you manage this disruption of business plan? So, airlines have reacted irrespective of claims that they were colluding to fix prices. This is market force-driven and survival-driven. Now, you can see that you get tickets for N40, 000, but I can assure you that people are underwriting those costs. The good thing is that if you are looking at the long term, you try as much as possible to keep moving, hoping that it will balance. The airline is not a one-year business, it is a long-term business. The focus of any airline is to manage costs.
There has lately been a rash of leased airplanes with foreign crew in local scheduled services. What is the motivation for this leased equipment instead of outright purchase?