Director of Flight Operations, Jetallance, Captain Norbert Winkler, speaks on communication problems between some local air traffic controllers and pilots, in this interview with OYETUNJI ABIOYE
What is the scope of your charter business in Nigeria?
It is 70 per cent within Nigeria and 30 per cent outside Nigeria. We also fly to Togo, Benin and Ghana. Apart from Nigeria, we also have a base in Angola.
What are the challenges the business is facing in the Nigerian environment?
Well, everybody is looking for expansion of business. There are so many European companies. Some go to China, India and Russia. We have chosen to concentrate on Africa because it is a fast growing market, especially Ghana and Nigeria. These are countries that are doing fine. So we have chosen to concentrate on these markets.
How will you compare the business in Nigeria with the Austrian aviation environment?
They are quite different. Flying an aircraft round in Nigeria is a bit challenging because it is very much different from Europe. In Europe, things are much more upgraded. You need to have a completely different orientation. The communication and navigational aids are still lacking in many respects.
What about your experience as a pilot?
There are so many foreign airlines coming into Nigeria from Europe and America. Most times, those pilots don’t understand what the Nigerian air traffic controllers are telling them. For instance KLM, Lufthansa or Airfrance pilots say they don’t understand what the controllers are telling them. Their English sounds strange, and there is a lot of miscommunication; and many times, there is no communication at all. From my own point of view as a pilot and also from a security point of view, there is need for the government to lay more emphasis on communication quality to avoid any kind of disaster or incident. In terms of communications, the air traffic controllers need to be trained to speak clear English because of the foreign airlines. Many times, the pilots don’t understand what they say.
What is the relationship between Jetalliance and Cessna?
Jetalliance used to be an agent for Cessna many years ago, for Europe and Eastern Europe especially. We are here in Nigeria because we have a joint venture with a company named Airfirst. With this joint venture, we are operating between three and five planes in the charter business.
You were in Abuja, now you are in Lagos. What is your mission in Nigeria?
Our business is private aviation, aircraft charter and sales. So the mission is to get our company more known to Nigerians and also to increase our charter sales business. On top of this, the two planes (Cessna Citation 3 and Cessna Sovereign) on display outside (our office) are for sale. We are looking for customers who will go into leasing contract with these two airplanes.
What kind of leasing contract are you looking at?
This is a complete lease finance airplanes. So if somebody wants to have this aircraft, he can step in through a complete lease agreement.
How would you assess the aircraft charter business in Nigeria?
The Gross National Product in Nigeria keeps on growing. For last year, it was about seven per cent. Everybody expects it to grow this year by about 10 per cent. So that means the economy in Nigeria is fast growing. Then, the private aviation business is also growing according to this. So, it is really an upcoming business. Together with our partner, Airfirst Nigeria Limited, we want to be in that business for the next four years.
How long have you been with your Nigerian partner?
Our relationship with Airfirst started some years ago, but the actual relationship started one year ago.
Are you looking at going into scheduled commercial flights?
No. Our focus is on charter business. Our goal with our airplanes is that we are operating European security standards. We are audited by Lufthansa too because they are already operating on their security standards. This is of course very important to our customers because they know that flying with us means to have the best security standard you can have. This is part of the terms for the pilots’ certification – certifying the aircraft, operations; everything has to do with European standard.
What are the types of aircraft in your fleet?
They are Learjet 60, Cessna Citation Sovereign, Citation XL, Cessna Citation 3 and Challenger 300 planes.
Jetalliance was in Nigeria a few weeks ago; what was it for?
Our sales people in Jetalliance came with Dassault’s Falcon 2000 and Falcon 7x planes. We are bringing in our know-how of the market and these private jets into the country?
What kind of private jets do you sell?
For our business jet sales, we are concentrating on Dassault, Eurocopter and Airbus business aircraft. Nigeria is an emerging market and that is why we are here. Our planes, Cessna Citation jet 3 and Cessna Sovereign are long and short distance jets. They are good for flights within Nigeria and flights to outside Nigeria. It is good for companies to bring in their people into the country and also to carry their people around the country. The Citation 3 jet is good for smaller airports/ airfields which has shorter runways within the country.