Business
AON Makes Case For Unemployed Pilots
The Executive Chairman
of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), Captain Noggie Meggison, has urged the incoming government in the country to quickly address the cases of hundreds of Nigerian pilots who are currently unemployed.
Meggison said the low capacity and the tendency of domestic carriers to go for expatriate pilots and engineers instead of recruiting indigenous personnel and training has created a high number of unemployment pilots.
He said to overcome this problem, government must look inwards towards reforming the aviation sector and rebuild it so that the country can have strong, profitable airlines, which will consequently create a lot of jobs for pilots and others in the industry.
“We must not hesitate to add that the task to rebuild the aviation and airline sector must remain on course in the light of many issues that domestic operations have consistently put on the front burner for government’s attention”, he said.
Meggison noted that the number of unemployed pilots is increasing from the current 200 to an astronomical number when the over 100 student pilots’ sent to Jordan by the Kano State Government would graduate later this year.
“This is in addition to the 52 youths trained under the Federal Government Amnesty Programme as well as the fresh batches of 100 graduating from the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) and the 40 from International Aviation College (IAC) in Ilorin, Kwara State”.
The AON chairman said unless something fast was done, the idea that after parents have spent huge sums of money, the have would constitute a disincentive to the growth and development of the Nigeria aviation sector.