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Fokker Aircraft Has Endeared Itself to us - IRS Airlines [interview]Aug 01, 2011 (Daily Independent/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- Isiaku Rabiu and Sons (IRS) is one of the domestic airlines in the country that is waxing stronger despite the challenges faced by airline operators in the country as a result of skyrocketing price of aviation fuel, high cost of maintenance, and double digits interest rate demanded by banks, among others. Not minding the challenges, the airline has decided to increase the number of aircraft in its fleet to compete with others. In this interview with journalists, the General Manager, Mr. Yemi Dada spoke on the airline's partnership with the aircraft manufacturing giant; Fokker. Correspondent Abel Orukpe was there. Excerpts: What is the essence of this briefing and why is Fokker here? This media briefing is organised to create an avenue of interaction between Fokker services; our partner for the airplane that we operate. IRS airline is the only airline in Nigeria that operate the Fokker airplane as of now, and Nigeria Airways Limited (NAL) used to operate the Fokker 27, 28 aircraft and of recent after we operated the F28 and F100 aircraft. However, since we started operating the Fokker airplanes, we have not had or we have not created an avenue where the media can help us project to the general public the good qualities of these products. We have had people make comment about this airplane, about whether there is still support for it, whether the aging of the parts and so on. You must have met with representatives of the aircraft manufacturing company, what were the issues you discussed with them? In addition to that, one of the things we actually discussed in our meeting was the modification they just introduced which will allow the crew in the cockpit access their documentation electronically using the I Pad. It is one of the revolution that we have around to enable them carry their document. Fokker Service has come up now with a modification that will allow the cockpit crew look at their airway chart, their manual and so on, on the I Pad in the cockpit. We are currently looking at the mode of implementing this and we will definitely do that to help modernise what we do. We will definitely be buying the modification, of course we will have to discuss with Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) on some of the modalities for that. This is going to help move us a little to the next frontier in terms of electronic flight documentation. At every point in time we are trying to stay ahead of the game. We are modifying our cabin, improving cooling, air conditioning in this part of the world is one of the key things, we find as a concern and Fokker Services has a modification called the recast, which we are installing on the same airplane that has new LED lighting to get, improve cooling in the cabin and provide better passenger comfort. That is another way to tell you that even through the airplane wasn't manufactured yesterday; things are being put in it that makes it up to date. Sir, there are other aircraft manufacturing companies in the world churning out good aircraft but the airline chose Fokker. Why did IRS go into partnership with Fokker ? When we started, we started with a fleet of Boeing 727 aircraft. We acquired initially five Boeing 727 aircraft. We started operating two of them before the 21-year-old ban came in place. And that precluded us from being able to register 3 other ones that we had acquired. We had to find other ways to dispose of them. The two that we are operating here we quickly found out that for the size of the market, for the quantum of fuel that they burn, we are paying so much on the weight, we pay for landing, parking based on weight. And the passenger yield per hour would not give you what you want from the Boeing 727 aircraft. So we looked at ourselves and said the best thing to do is to right size it. And in trying to look at alternatives we came across the Fokker 28, Mac 4000. It was being operated in South Africa. And we decided that we should experiment with one to find out how it would compete in the Nigerian market. And very quickly it endeared itself to us. It was very easy for our crew to fly, manageability was for wonderful. The landings you get from the Fokker 28 airplane, I think is designed to give you a very comfortable landing. And the passenger load factor, we were getting very high load factor on it and we were able to do very quick turnaround. We didn't require a lot of ground equipment to support it. It was a beautiful departure grew from what we had on the Boeing 727 aircraft. And so we grew the fleet of the F28 aircraft to four. And going forward we found out that as our patronage continue to increase, we needed to also increase the capacity of what we had and of course we have enjoyed the F28 aircraft, so naturally we turned to another Fokker product which is the F100. It gives us from moving from the F28 aircraft to F100 aircraft, we continue to get benefits, such as a lot of savings on fuel, the ease with which the crew will fly the airplane. It was just that that influence our decision. What other comparative advantages did IRS observed in Fokker airplanes compared to others? We actually operated an Embraer that was owned by the Bauchi state government for about a year and we were able to compare and we saw that in terms of technology, the Fokker 100 aircraft even though it has been manufactured several years earlier, was in certain cases more advanced than the Embraer that we were operating. And the cost of maintaining it compared with the cost of the Embraer was light apart. So we actually concentrated on acquiring more F100 aircraft. And that is why we have five F100 airplanes on our fleet today. And we are looking forward to building this up to a fleet of 10, so that we can reach all our domestic and regional missions. What is LED all about? We have a programme to modify our airplanes one after the other as they come. The LED lighting, what it does for us is that it gives you a little investment on savings in that you don't need to keep changing the aircraft lighting always as before. Again the kind of hew, or lighting that it provides in the cabin gives you that bright system. |