- Nigeria to Get New Aircraft Maintenance Hangar
Indication emerged on Monday that a new aircraft maintenance hangar would be developed in Abuja to service Nigeria and other West African countries.
This hint coincided with the announcement by the Federal Government of its preparedness to phase out obsolete trainer aircraft at the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Zaria, Kaduna State, and replace them with modern ones.
The Minister of State for Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika; and the Chief Executive Officer, Interject Nigeria limited, Mr. Seun Peters, gave the indication during the delivery of a new trainer aircraft to the aviation college in Zaria.
The new hangar, according to Peters, will be built by Diamond Aircraft of Austria, which manufactured the newly delivered trainer aircraft.
He said, “Interjet Limited, in partnership with Diamond Aircraft of Austria, is working towards building a state-of-the-art maintenance facility in Abuja to service Nigeria and other West African countries.
“There is, therefore, absolutely no reason why Nigeria cannot maintain and assemble aircraft in this age of ICT and universal science engineering.”
Sirika said the Federal Government was in full support of the re-fleeting of the trainer aircraft at the NCAT, adding that “the acquisition of more aircraft was a commendable initiative by the institution as well as the re-fleeting of its old aircraft used for its training.”
The Rector and Chief Executive, NCAT, Capt. Abdulsalam Mohammed, said that 29 trainer aircraft had become old and too expensive to maintain, stressing that the latest in the fleet was bought over 15 years ago.
He said, “The NCAT is acquiring a total of 20 of these aircraft, five multi-engine DA42 and 15 single-engine DA40 trainers. Today, we are taking delivery of the first DA42 multi-engine aircraft. These new trainer aircraft will significantly improve our flight training experience. And from the angle of cost efficiency, our analysis shows they will significantly reduce our operating cost, especially in the area of maintenance and fuelling.”
“They are also equipped with glass cockpit and Garmin 1000, which will make it easier for our graduating pilots to transition to new generation commercial aircraft.”