Mr. Basil Agboarumi, the Acting Managing Director of Skyway Aviation Handling Company Limited (SAHCOL), has decried ground handling rates charged by aviation ground handling firms.

He called on the Federal government to initiate policies that will improve ground handling business in Nigeria.

Agboarumi who spoke at an interactive forum with aviation journalists at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos called on the Federal Government through the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to intervene in the price war that has been created by unhealthy competition to ensure regulation and survival of the multibillion business.

He stated that NCAA can regulate the operations by setting standards for pricing, adding that due to this, foreign airlines pay a paltry sum of what they are supposed to pay for services to ground handling companies.

The various ground handling companies especially SAHCOL and Nigerian Aviation Handling Company Plc (NAHCO) have been embroiled over competition that made them to ridiculously lower their charges to attract clients who are mostly airlines.

There was a period the two major firms where embroiled in a spat over winning over an airline which later turned messy.

The SAHCOL boss lamented that the handling rates they are payed in Nigeria which he noted has remained so over the years despite the fall of Naira to Dollars and other major currencies.

His words, “Let’s look at the banking industry for instance; there is a regulator that regulates their activities. For instance, the handling rates we pay in Nigeria has not changed over the years despite the fall in naira to dollars and other major currencies”.

“The airlines have consistently changed their fares, but we have not done that for so many years. We still operate with the same tariff that we have been operating up to the time naira was N165 to a dollar and regrettably today, the rate has grown more than double”.

What it costs us to buy a ground handling equipment today has grown astronomically. It is not that the cost has changed, but whereby we were spending one naira to buy a ground handling equipment before, by the time we source for foreign exchange, you will see that it has gone to about N3. That’s the situation we have found ourselves. But, the airlines still pay the same amount of money they have been paying us even before then”, he added.

He disclosed that SAHCOL as a company have identified cooperation as the tonic to build the industry, stressing that, “We will continue to do our best, take the right step and initiative to ensure that what can give us the kind of aviation that we desire in the future is done. There must come to a point whereby we will definitely need ourselves”.

He hinted that in other parts of the world, ground handling companies are pooling resources together; noting that it is for them to get to that maturity stage.

“Even, airlines are cooperating now. When you have airlines in various parts of the world, they complement each other in passenger and cargo operations. We will have better aviation industry once we begin to look at the industry from that perspective”.

We know we are growing and closing the gaps. For example, before SAHCOL was privatised in 2009, we maintained about 21 per cent of the market share, but today to the glory of God, we have grown to about 48 per cent and we are not stopping there, we are still growing. Part of what we need to do is to train our staff and get modern and state-of-the-art equipment into the system and that is what we are doing and closing the gap even as we are stepping up on our services.