22 WORLD ANALYSIS
(US$13.4m) modernised warehouse, which was the first and biggest of its kind in West Africa. This, in fact, has everything necessary for being a cargo hub in sub-Sahara Africa. The new warehouse has an increased capacity of approximately 21,000 square metres, which represents an increase in storage space of over 50% when compared with the old structure that was built over three decades ago. We also delivered cargo screening and bomb detection facilities, much to the delight of airlines, especially the big international players. “In general, we were able to upgrade our facilities at all international airports, and enhanced security and crowd access control.”
For the handler it was a profitable time in terms of contracts won. These included Kenya Airways Cargo and Camair passenger handling (at Lagos); Blue Panorama and Air France (at Abuja); Singapore Cargo; Trade Craft Air and Cromos Airlines (at Port-Harcourt). “We renewed our ISAGO certification for another two years, and won Nigeria’s prestigious Nigeria Aviation Awards back to back. We were quite happy to handle the inaugural flights of the Cargolux B747-800 and the Ethiopian Airlines’ B787 Dreamliner. It was a huge leap for us, with the airlines being the first in the country, and signalled the importance of the Nigerian market in African aviation.” Sanya adds that the investment of US$13m for the renewal of the GSE fleet made in 2011 flowed into 2012, and that this investment has given Nahcoaviance the necessary capacity for its Africa Expansion Programme. It’s worth noting at this juncture that all the engines of all the GSE purchased and delivered were Tier III engines, which are environmentally-friendly.
Nahcoaviance is now a Corporate Member of the Nigerian Institute for Training & Development and it has obtained a Certificate of Compliance from the Industrial Training Fund: an Authorised Training Centre status is now on the horizon. “We now have a fully-fledged
Learning and Development Department, with state-of-the-art facilities, such as an e-centre, a syndicate room, a main training room, e-learning, an e-library, a lounge and so on. It will be a revenue generating centre this year. The centre provides training support to the aviation industry, especially in the area of ground handling competency. “We currently have some engineers
from various stations undergoing GSE training in France; this is in addition to local training by others as well.” The silver lining is not without a cloud, however. Sanya says that it is not an
GROUND HANDLING INTERNATIONAL FEBRUARY 2013
easy task to recruit capable hands for employment in operations, and that there are several reasons for this. First, higher education institutions do
not offer the requisite courses designed to meet the personnel needs of the aviation industry in general. There is also no specialised institute to train and develop people in ground handling services following the collapse of Nigerian Airways.
The cycle involved in recruiting new
staff is about six months and they have to go through a specific process. Once a shortlist is drawn up there is a test, a 34 day period of pre-employment training, a pre-employment examination, an interview and then induction and employment. There is a high cost to the training that includes specific aircraft training; airline training; unique loading techniques; DGR training and administrative capabilities. Additionally, there is the associated periodic cost of due compliance and mandatory training. Nahcoaviance is considered to be the dominant player in ground handling in the region and Sanya says that it is near impossible to poach competent hands from another ground handling company or an airline. “But to maintain our leadership position in West Africa, we ensure that our fresh recruits go through the whole gamut of internationally-certified training. Our culture of integrity is also bearing fruit, as more and more operations staff are being nationally rewarded for acts of integrity, including a staff member who found and returned US$25,000 and €5,000 during an aircraft cleaning exercise. “Major staff changes in the last six months included the appointment of Relationship Managers and a Quality Services Manager to give personalised services to our client airlines in order to enhance their customer service experience.
“Nigerian aviation is an investment destination stop for 2013, considering the forecast growth in the economy and the completion of the expansion and remodelling projects embarked upon by the Aviation Ministry early in 2012. The infrastructural investment and the
government policies on cargo aviation will greatly stimulate activities in 2013,” he concludes. BidAir’s Bob Gurr looks back on an uneven period of operations. “The past 12 months have been fairly unsettled (what a surprise!), with a number of airlines stopping operations to South Africa; these included Iberia and Jet Airways, which were clients of BidAir, and others that were not. The year has also been up and down in terms of the handling of regional airlines, with three stopping operations during 2011 and then recommencing reduced operations at various stages in 2012. Issues regarding slow or non-payment of handling accounts have taken up a great deal of time and effort during 2012. We were successful in winning the seasonal business of Condor in Cape Town as well as renewing our agreement with Air France/KLM for a further three years. Unfortunately, Lufthansa and Swiss were lost in March. However, this was definitely not due to service issues! The grounding of 1Time towards the end of the year will show an impact on overall ground handling requirements and we await with interest the undoubted entry of a new low cost carrier during the first half of 2013.
A year of mixed fortunes for BidAir
“Because of the state of the ground handling business in South Africa, there has been no major investment in GSE during the past year. Whilst we continue to keep a watchful eye on the development of green GSE, equally there is no fundamental imperative to invest at present due to the relative youth of our current equipment.” Bob goes on to say that staff training has remained an area of huge investment and effort, the turnover within certain areas of his operation meaning that there has been almost a continual need for induction and initial training to keep up with demand. “The regulated and operational training requirements of almost 3,000 staff means that training is carried out on a daily basis at multiple airports. A training database has been introduced in the last year that makes for more effective planning of staff and training resources. There has been a small reduction in overall staff numbers as a result of business lost but this has been achieved through natural attrition. “In closing, 2013 will once again be a year where the airlines will continue to seek more value for money, which invariably results in reduced revenue to the handling agent with little or no corresponding reduction in overall costs. The loss of a number of large and small airlines in the South African ground handling market will no doubt lead to
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