Air Peace wants NCAA to review timeline on C-check

he Chairman of Air Peace, Mr Allen Onyema, wants the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to revise the mandatory 18 months period given operators to carry out C-check on all aircraft flying in the country.

C-check is the third category of major maintenance carried on aircraft every 18 months, whether the plane was flown or not, as required by the NCAA.

Onyema advocated that the NCAA should adopt the 4,000 flying hours timeline obtainable in the United States.

He said a situation in which an aircraft was forced by the NCAA to undergo C-check every 18 months was making both scheduled and charter operators lose hundreds of millions of dollars.

He said airlines used to spend about $500,000, per aircraft, for maintenance overseas.

“Imagine the number of planes in the fleet of Arik, Aero, Air Peace, Medview, AZMAN, Discovery, Overland , DANA Air, the number is huge.

“Every 18 months Nigeria loses several millions of dollars to other countries for aircraft maintenance We are losing this huge sums because we do not have the infrastructure locally to carry out major repairs on aircraft.”

He said that was contrary to what obtained in other countries of the world, adding that the government should divest from the aviation sector.

Government, he advised, should not establish a national carrier, describing that venture as a financial drain pipe.

He expressed optimism that Buhari’s administration will build on some positive achievements of successive governments to develop the aviation sector for the benefit of users and growth and investment in the nation’s economy.