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For nearly two decades, Nigerian aviation industry, both civilian and military, had witnessed a number of unfortunate calamities; in September 1992, a Hercules C-130 military plane crashed in Ejigbo, Lagos, five minutes after take-off, in which 192 middle ranking and senior military officers perished, in November 1996, 142 people died when an ADC Boeing 727 plane plunged into a lagoon near Lagos, in May 2002, an EAS Airline plane crashed in kano killing 148 people, most of them non–passengers on the ground, on 23 October 2005 a Belleview airline crashed immediately after takeoff, killing all on board, and on December 11, of same year, many lives of young school children were lost, when a Sosolioso airline – Flight 1145 crashed in Port Harcourt and recently on September 19, 2006, a military plane, Dornier 228 crashed at Mbakumu, Benue State, claiming the lives of 13 senior military officers. Regrettably, despite the pains, agonies, grieve and lost of lives associated with air mishaps, the usual way Nigerian government attends to such issue only stops at - declaration of days national mourning, inter-religion services and inauguration of task forces or panels of investigation; after that, all is well, until another disaster happens!
Has time not yet come for us to completely deviate from our usual ad-hoc approach to aviation safety concerns and embrace modern management practice? Few months ago, this writer, wrote an article with a title, ‘benchmarking our aviation industry’ which was published on this site and leadership newspapers of 15th day of January, 2006; the content of the article can best be sum-up as a clarion call for us to copy from others. For us to copy from others, we must know our areas of lapses, identify and define the problems, and also search for the best alternative solution among the several solutions. As customary, the federal of Government Nigeria has directed a full-scale investigation into the 19 September Dornier 228 military plane crash. The inauguration of an investigative panel is a welcome step, but no successive Governments ever published or acted on the conclusions and recommendations of previous public enquiries. The recommendations, findings and conclusions of the panel of investigations would not surpass the already known typical problems of the Nigerian aviation sector : Infrastructural decay, inefficiency and attitude, coupled with outdated navigational equipment, poor airport facilities, old aircrafts, disjointed structures , inadequate training and re-training programmes for personnel, poor funding, security lapses ,absent of innovations and continuous improvements in the system, official negligence, poor motivational support and the ‘fiend’’, corruption, these are the malaise surrounding the Nigerian aviation industry.
The idea of a Total Quality Management (TQM) approach in reforming our aviation industry is an attempt at suggesting a Management Science or simply an Operational Research technique in proffering a solution to the protracted decay in the aviation industry, or simply, this is an attempt at offering another ‘outsider’ alternative solution from numerous best solutions that expert in the aviation industry would put forward to the decision makers in the industry.
Total Quality Management (TQM) is an effective system for integrating the quality development; quality maintenance and quality improvement efforts of various aspects in a system, so as to enable services at the most economical level and derive full satisfaction. This writer had once wrote in an article titled ‘re-branding Nigeria’ where the writer criticized the so much reliance on the use ‘holistic approach’ in Nigeria in conceiving systems, but was fast to emphasized that, Holistic Approach is excellent in solving problems, TQM is something similar to Holistic Approach. The technique tries to encompass every aspect of a system, in solving a particular problem that may occur in the system, TQM is another branch of system thinking that imply effective way of enhancement of facilities, services and human development. It does not purport to provide all answers; it simply provides access to fundamental principles, with supporting information, to develop understanding to support the development of strategies to address situations, not just any strategy, but strategies which have a very high probability of working when applied.
Our aviation industry is at crossed road, or indeed it is unwell, therefore numerous solutions from diverse faculties are needed to cure the industry from this ‘man- made’ conundrum. Political leaders and indeed decision makers in our aviation sector most wake-up to the need of: Getting things right first, meeting the needs and expectation of the passengers, covering all part of the industry, developing system and procedure, which support quality and improvement, developing continues process of improvement, including every person in the industry and examining all cost which are related to quality.
Getting things right first, is the most critical and imperative thing to be adhered to. All stakeholders in the industry have to be sure all things are, as they are supposed to be, but the sanctity of flight crew, people in the tower and regulating agencies is central. Pilots and the flight engineers know more than anybody the health status of a plane and the crucial decision of to fly an aircraft are in their hands- pilots in particular. Regulating agencies should also placed more weight not only in enforcing airlines to maintain standard and obey rules but regular medical examination of crew, especially before flight test for alcohols and other substance; crew are always in the confidence of the passengers but crews do some times neglect the lives of the passengers; in 1972 Eastern Airline Flight-401 crashed mainly due to failure of the pilot to properly monitor the flight instrument, likewise in 1972 Prinair Flight 191 crashed due to pilot landing error and in 1958 the Munich air disaster was due to pilot take-off error. Though this writer is not aware of any indictment of pilots or any crew member in Nigeria due to negligence on their part, but time has come for greater attention to be placed on airline crews, in 1990 Northwest Airlines crew members were sentenced to jail term for flying from Fargo, North Dakota to Minneapolis–St Paul international airport while drunk, in 2001, the same Northwest fired a pilot in July 2002, who failed a breathalyzer test after flying from San Antonio, Texas to St-Paul Airport. The provision of up-to-date navigational aids is an integral part of safety in aviation, today ground–based navigational aid are rapidly being displaced by satellite-based aids like GPS, which make it possible for aircrews to knows their position with great precision anywhere in the world and with the arrival of WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System) the GPS has become more accurate for both vertical and horizontal use.
Airline companies have much role to play in meeting the needs and expectation of passengers ; passengers are the bedrock for success in the aviation industry, the more people that fly, the additional returns accruable to the airlines, and at the same time more revenues to the authorities, therefore meeting the expectation of passengers is both the responsibility of airlines and regulating agencies; user friendly online services (booking, flight schedules etc), attractive fare, superb services on board, and after landing customer care. While authorities can play a complementary role, by providing facilities for passengers’ welfare in airport, for instance in 2005 Dubai international Airport was committed to a major expansion plan of 4.1 billion dollars, including the construction of a flower center that cost the airport 50 million dollars.
For us to achieve a meaningful overhauling of the aviation industry, every aspect of industry most be make to work as it should be; decision makers in the industry most always ask the pertinent question ‘is what we have what ought to be’. From the physical condition of aircrafts, conditions of Run Ways, grades of navigational aids, security of passengers and facilities, fire-fighting facilities to psychological condition of crew and personnel, every aspect of the industry is equally important.
Developing system and procedure, which support quality and improvement, this is where IT plays a significant role, with the current globalization trends and changing passenger behaviour; unswerving modern and easy to up date, improvements, are vital in the industry. Once a decline in quality and improvement is noticed, there most be increased emphasis on developing new system and procedures, this is where science will take over ad-hoc decision-making.
A number of factors appear to influence the eventual success of performance improvement, a quality strategy not properly thought through will lead to difficulties, all the task forces and investigative panels formed by the federal after every air disaster Nigeria witnessed, most have made a number of findings and provided some recommendation to both Airlines and the regulating agencies, but these cannot go on to reform the industry, except a mechanism is put in place that would provide a continues improvement for both technical and managerial skill. Daily Trust newspapers of Feb. 13, 2006 reported that the presidential task force on aviation reform, which was formed by the federal government after the December 11, 2005, Sosolioso air crash, has identified the imposition of non–professionals at management position in the aviation industry, this have indicates the need of a vigorous pursue of standardization of jobs, detailed and careful analysis of tasks and functions. Thus, to achieve these, work have to broken down into its element, which will be then distributed between several workers each of whom perform one job, this bring us to the need of re-training program, knowledge updating, seminars and workshop for people in the aviation industry.
For the current attempt at reforming the aviation industry to generate a fruitful pull-off and make meaningful impact on the economy, the reform most covers all part of the industry. For the reform to be effective, every single part of the aviation industry, each department, each activity, each person and each level must work together, because each person and each activity affects another. This can be achieved by putting in place a quality strategy, however, it is necessary to provide the goal and guide which help to keep any new program in an appropriate direction, that would relate to the needs of the industry in future; for instance managers should always keep in their minds the 8/20 perato principle. To develop, maintain and control efficiency in the aviation industry is like in any other sector- there is a price to pay, the cost is not small, therefore raising fund is a major factor in the Nigerian aviation sector, the calls for merger, technical partnership and searching for FDI (foreign direct investments) is a step in the right direction.
The investigative panel on the September 19, Dornier 228 crash, would certainly come out with far reaching recommendations as hitherto done by similar bodies , but decision makers most as a matter of urgency make the ‘real problem owners in the industry’- airline companies, regulating agencies, labor union, and even concern passengers part of the committee to implement the recommendations; and the implementers need: top political leaders support, inter–agency cooperation, a clear division of task and responsibilities between regulating agencies, the use of scientific selection of the person to do a new design, continuous training of workers to perform job in a way specified and a steering group that would serve as a independent voice apart from that of the regulating agencies, nevertheless, all stake holders in the Nigerian aviation industry most keep in mind that, attitudinal change is central to any meaningful reform.
Zayyad I. Muhammad writes from Jimeta, Nigeria
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