Aviation stakeholders have called on the Federal Government to establish three strong national carriers, each having about 50 aircraft in its fleet.

The stakeholders under the aegis of Aviation Safety Round Table Initiative said this was necessary for Nigeria to realise the economic gains of the air travel sector and for the indigenous carriers to effectively compete with international airlines and benefit from the growing air travel market in the country.

The body made this known in Lagos, Wednesday at a press conference that the country loses billions of naira every year because it does not have its own carriers that could largely benefit from the international traffic from Nigeria, which grows at over 15 per cent every year.

Speaking at the conference, the president of Sabre Travel Network, Mr Gbenga Olowo, said the designation of three airlines as national aircraft was the only way Nigerian carriers could compete with the over 27 foreign airlines that operate into the country.

Mr. Olowo said if domestic airlines must compete with foreign carriers, they need to forge consolidation by pooling resources to enhance their capacity.

He observed that Nigerian airlines have low capacity and that explains why none could enter into major global airlines alliances and benefit from code share which could take passengers farther than airlines operational destinations.

In his presentation, the former Managing Director of Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) Captain Roland Iyayi, canvassed a three-tier licensing structure for domestic airlines, which should be granted approval for operations according to the scope and capacity of their operations.

Mr. Iyayi said the challenges in the sector would not be addressed until government visited the policy of deregulation and liberalisation of the sector with a view to resolving the current distortions.

He explained that the basics of the industry has to be seriously addressed as airlines were using wrong money sourced under suffocating repayment terms to finance aircraft, which often times leads to the collapse of many airlines, adding that until Nigerian carriers utilise the best business plan, they would not enjoy cheap access to funding.

In his presentation, an aviation security expert, Group Captain John Ojukutu (rtd) said the current threats to civil aviation in Nigerian airports might force the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), to carry out a fresh audit of Nigerian airports.

Group Captain Ojukutu noted that Nigerian airports remained unsafe because many of them do not have security fence, although many of them have permeter fencing.