Nigeria’s aviation sector lost $700m in three months to COVID-19 –IATA 

Nigeria’s aviation industry has recorded losses in the region of $700 million in the past 3 months to the coronavirus crisis, Funke Adeyemi, Africa Regional Director of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has declared.

She made the revelation on Tuesday during a webinar titled, “A National Conversation: Mapping Nigeria’s response to COVID-19,” further stating that 90,000 jobs were at risk in the sector.

“Aviation is one of the hardest-hit sectors. Over the past three months, passenger travel reduced by 90 per cent. That led to a loss of $28.5bn in GDP for Africa and put about three million jobs at risk.

“For Nigeria, the loss was colossal; the industry had about $700m loss and about 90,000 jobs at risk across the entire value chain of aviation.”

She nevertheless commended governments around the world for introducing lockdowns considering that the aviation business could have ramped up the spread of the virus.

“Even though passenger travel was down and none existent, aviation was still supporting the fight against COVID-19 by ferrying medicines and essential provisions around the continent.

Read also: COVID-19: British airline penalised for breaching Nigeria’s aviation guidelines

“Aviation continues to maintain its criticality – it’s not just a means of transportation; it is actually an economic business, which supports the fight against COVID-19,” Mrs Adeyemi said.

She disclosed that the IATA and other international bodies had reviewed alternatives to make air travel safer for passengers.

“The industry has been working proactively to see how we can mitigate the risk of spread where aviation is a vector for spreading and, at the same time, conveying passengers and the government. COVID-19 is with us for some time. There is no solution for it.

“However, what the UN, IATA and ICAO have come up with is a series of biosecurity temporary measures. It would look at the entire end-to-end passenger journey, right from pre-flight where we can collect passenger data and health declaration forms through established platforms, to travel procedures at the airports, and temperature checks,” she said.

Adeyemi noted that synergy between health authorities and the aviation industry would be significant to the resumption of flight operations.

The Nigerian government has declared that the civil aviation authorities will determine the resumption of domestic flight services in the country.

Sani Aliyu, National Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, said on 1st June that “the aviation industry is requested to start developing protocols to allow for domestic flights to resume anytime from the 21st of June onwards.”

Opinions