By Itohan Abara-Laserian
To reduce operational costs and enhance Nigerian airlines’ global competitiveness, United Nigeria Airlines and Cronos Airlines have signed a strategic partnership to set up a Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility in Nigeria.
Both companies also sealed an agreement on interline and codeshare agreement with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Lagos.
The Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, United Nigeria, Prof. Obiora Okonkwo, said at the MoU signing that there were no facilities for main base services for aircraft.
He said that there was only for line services.
According to Okonkwo, the cost of setting up the facility cannot be disclosed but the average cost of basic C-check of an aircraft outside Nigeria is a minimum of half a million dollars, if there is no crack or other major issues.
He said the airline had plans to have about six aircraft in the category of E190 between November 2024 and the second quarter of 2025.
“We just took delivery of an E190 and, hopefully, we will have the second one shortly.
“In the first quarter of 2025, we are going to have two more and another two in the second quarter.
“For this new fleet, we have to develop the capacity of both the cabin crew, cockpit crew and ground engineering crew.
Chief Executive Officer, Cronos Airlines, Andeas Kaiafas; Chairman\CEO United Nigeria Airlines (UNA), Prof Obiora Okonkwo at the Signing of Memorandum of Understanding on the Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul Partnership, Interline and Codeshare Agreement on Sunday in Lagos.
“These are also part of the partnership that we have signed,” Okonkwo said.
Okonkwo expressed optimism that an MRO facility in Nigeria would save operators the expenses of transporting aircraft outside the country for maintenance and save Nigeria’s foreign exchange.
According to him, such a facility in the country will help to tackle flight delays owing to Aircraft on Ground (AoG) scenarios and related issues.
“As you may know, we do not have in Nigeria an MRO to do main base services, we can only do line services in some of our fleets.
“They have to fly across countries to be serviced. This is costing us a lot of resources. These are things that impact on the overall cost of operations.
“We have no doubt that with this, we should not only be saving cost of operation for United Nigeria, we would also be offering services to other operators who might require it.
“That will also help the nation to save our scarce foreign exchange and open up a new door for other aspects of strong participation in our nation, because other countries will also visit us to enjoy or benefit from our services.
“This will address complaints about delays which have to do with AoG, safety, high technical standards,” he said.
Okonkwo commended the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority for regulatory procedures in place.
On the airline’s regional and international operations, Okonkwo said: “This interline and codeshare agreement will help us to put all the infrastructure in place and take all the necessary steps to integrate our services.
“This will also provide strong regional operations, which you know, will open up our air travel in the region and help some commercial activities.
“Interline is very important. We will also take advantage of the ongoing reforms and growth already in place in the aviation ecosystem.”
On his part, the Chief Executive Officer of Cronos Airlines, Mr Andreas Kaiafas, said that the partnership was borne out of the need to close the gap in aircraft maintenance in the region.
“It is not only to do maintenance for Nigerian airlines but also for other airlines in the region. We are looking at optimising costs.”
“It takes five to six hours to position aircraft to do maintenance and it will be easy to fly two hours to get that done, considering issues with visas, hotel accommodation, among others that hugely affect operational costs,” he said.
NAN reports that Cronos has an existing MRO in South Africa at the O. R. Tambo International Airport, and has been operating for over 13 years with certification on E737.