The Airline Marketing Director, Africa, of Airbus, Joep Ellers has disclosed that air transport is one of the major contributors to Nigeria economy with 1.7 billion dollars cash inflow, growing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 0.4%.
According to him, Africa is important to Airbus and air transport is important to Nigeria, as it provides 241,000 jobs.
He stated that 79 percent of aircraft in use are old-generation aircraft while only 25 percent are new generation, hinting that 80 percent of traffic into Africa are operated by non-African carriers.
Ellers, who stated this at a press briefing in Abuja, revealed that Airbus is a European multinational aerospace corporation, the world’s largest manufacturer of airlines and a leading helicopter manufacturer with a total assets of €115.94 billion as of 2022 and has 79 aircraft operatives in Africa.
He further stated that Airbus latest edition of its Global Market Forecast (GMF) for the period of 2023-2024 period offers a forward view of air traffic and fleet evolution.
He added that the African GMF 2023 outlook for 2019- 2042 GDP, trade and population growth projected that there will be +3.3 Africa GDP growth, +831 million population growth, +494 million urbanization, +3.0 Export growth and +370 million middle-class growth.
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“To achieve this 2019 – 2042 projection, 220 among the 670 already operating aircraft in Africa as of 2020 will be replaced, 450 will be retrained, 960 new one will be added, making it a total of 1180 aircrafts by the end of 2042.
“Over the next 20 years, Africa will need 14,000 new pilots, 17,000 new technicians and 23,000 new additional cabin crew,” he projected.
In his speech, Airbus Africa and Middle East Marketing Manager, Mr Prajyoth Krishna Mirajkar, stated that to purchase an aircraft from Airbus, Purchase agreement (PA), will be signed and commitment fee called Pre Delivery Payment (PDP) paid.
Therefore, once the PDP has been paid and there is a delivery date, airline will come to take delivery of their brand new aircraft.
Moreover, he stated that at the delivery there are two sources of financing done by the leasing community, the first one is finance list or asset bank loan and the second is lease by transaction. The two types of financing is PDP financing and financing by delivery.
Breaking down 2022 aircrafts delivery by source of financing, 661 aircrafts were delivered, out of which 60% is by lessors, 36% by airline debit and loans, 4% by Expert credit and 1% by manufacturers.
George Uriesi, the Chief Operating Officer of Ibom Air, stated that Ibom Air came about when the government of Akwa Ibom wanted to wean itself of oil dependence and create a diverse economy for the state.
