There is this arrogance and chutzpah ingrained in any Nigerian, once he finds himself in any competition. Every Nigerian believes he should win the argument – any argument. Now when his opponent is Ghana he is ever motivated to win. Statements like "Ordinary Ghana here, bla bla bla. ." become common.

So it is with alarm that Nigerians are reacting or over-reacting to the rumour that Ghana has stolen their bragging rights of "Lagos as the Aviation Hub".

Accra is not yet the hub, Lome is still ahead of Accra in the pecking order of growth rate of Airports. Lagos is still the bigger airport of all three but it is fast losing brand equity because it lacks efficiency in providing seamless travel experience. The aviation fuel issue gives Lagos a bad name.

AWA in the loop

The revelation in all of this is the success story of Africa World Airlines (AWA). It started flying to Lagos in 2013 and had to struggle to survive. Its 50-seater Embraer 145 sometimes flew almost empty.

They changed flight times almost a dozen times before they settled for the evening schedule and four times a week schedule.

They persevered and suddenly the market turned on its head and the only one sitting pretty today is AWA.

All Nigerian players in the market entered with B737 or MD83, all seating more than 100 passengers. Aero alternates with the Dash 8 Q400.

After the election of President Buhari, the market changed.  First, the aviation fuel crisis started. Till today it has not abated.  It took its toll on the airlines. In the process a new Nigerian Airline, Dana, entered the market with an MD83 aircraft, creating excess capacity.

Foreign exchange became scarce commodity in Nigeria and Nigerians could not pay foreign suppliers.  Nigerians could not use their cards abroad because of foreign currency restrictions leading to reduction in passenger numbers. So the available 1500 daily seats to Accra became surplus to need.

The battle of attrition began and at the end only Arik and Medview survived the brutal battle on the Nigerian side.

Because of the size of equipment used by AWA it was built for attrition. It came out of the battle smelling like roses. With the exit of four daily flights by three Nigerian carriers, AWA ramped up operations from four flights a week to six then to 11 and as is being speculated to 21 flights a week, all under two months.

The mighty falling

Most of the victim airlines are now fighting for survival. They lost to a small but ambitious Ghanaian carrier.

Meanwhile, the story now is that Air Peace, another Nigerian Airline, will be joining the Ghana route but they have chosen to go against Arik from Abuja instead of AWA from Lagos.

Lessons

There are lessons to be learnt from the success story of AWA. The same lessons are evident in the slow but steady rise of Accra Airport which is small but functional. With its constant restructuring and rebuilding, it may well replicate the AWA success story and finally steal the Aviation Hub pie from Lagos in reality.

As of now, we can only doff our hats for the guys at the SSNIT Emporium in Accra. Kudos to AWA!