Nigeria's Private Jet Owners Spend N30bn On Maintenance Annually

Leadership News in Nigeria has hinted that as the number of private jet owners in Nigeria continues to decrease due to economic recession, the remaining 50 per cent who still own the luxury items now spend about N30 billion on maintenance annually.

According to the finding, the number of owners of the luxury items dropped from 200 to between 50 and100, with most of them who are out of the league either selling out their private jets or returning them to their original owners abroad.
Before the present government came into power, it was estimated that Nigeria had about 200 private jets owned by individuals.

Confirming the cost of aircraft maintenance, President of National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE), Engr Isaac Balami, concurred that it is very expensive, as the issue of safety and engineering are paramount.

Balami said that even though modern aircraft has been able to take care of some of the maintenance by just software applications, the cost of maintaining an aircraft still remains a function of the type of the aircraft and the level of specifications certified by the aircraft maker.

Stating that the cost of maintaining an aircraft does not only end at “C” checks level, he added that there was also need for pre-flight, post flight and weekly inspections too, depending on whether the aircraft is Boeing, Airbus, Bombadier or Gulfstream.
He said, “It depends on how the manufacturer specify how you can do checks on the aircraft routine. There are normal routine checks but there is also non-routine checks. Sometimes you land and maybe you applied too much breaks and within two weeks, the break that is supposed to serve in the next four months, five months is now overused and due for replacement.

“There is conditional and unconditional maintenance checks. Sometimes you even have the ones you don’t even expect. A bird may just fly into your engine and that may cost hundreds and thousands of dollars.
“On average, I will say maintenance cost of private jet costs about $500,000 to $1 million US dollars for a year, depending on the size of the aircraft. The reason is because it is the function of the age of the aircraft. The older the aircraft the costlier the cost of maintenance. You must also pay engineers monthly and other costs. All these are part of it”.

-Leadership.ng