Encomium
Billionaire owner of Discovery Airline, Tunde Babalola, has debunked the widespread allegation that his airline is riddled with crisis.
The Chief Executive Officer of Discovery Air in a chat with ENCOMIUM Weekly on Monday, November 10, 2014, said the airline is doing fine and all allegations against the organization is nothing but tissues of lies.
He has 200 staffers working for him and owns the company 100 per cent.
On the allegation that the airline depends on ticket sales to fuel the aircraft. He said, “How is that possible? The ticket sales is not more than N5 million, so it’s very degrading to say. “I monitor the sales myself to fuel the planes,” he added.
On the airline owing staff’s salaries, he debunked the allegation stating that the company recently did a C-Check for on two of their aircraft for almost $1 million.
“If we are having financial difficulty, it’s expected because ours is a new company but we are not. How can a company they claimed is in financial mess be able to do a C-Check worth about a million dollars?”
When he was, however, told that some staffers confirmed that they are being owed salaries, he said, “It’s not possible! If I have to discipline my staff, I will discipline them and that is different.”
He concluded by saying some people want to bring him down and it would cost him nothing to shut down the airline and move abroad to handle his other businesses.
“If they want to bring me down, I would just shut the company and go back to my other business abroad,” he said.
Discovery Air began operation in June 2014, and currently has two Boeing 737 for its domestic flights.
One of the spokespersons for the airline, Sylvia, in a chat with ENCOMIUM Weekly on Monday, November 10, 2014, claimed there is nothing of such rocking the airline. “The airline is doing fine and there is nothing unusual with our flight issues.”
The business activities of Discovery Air is alleged to be grinding to a halt as a result of huge debt profile. According to reports, the airline is currently embroiled in a huge financial crisis and this reportedly led to the resignation of seven pilots who complained that the airline is owing them over five months salary.
Babalola was said to have collected some loans which he used for his oil business but refused to pay back. So when he floated Discovery Air and approached the banks for fresh loans, they turned him down based on his past debt profile.
The company is said to have been really struggling but Babalola’s strong will is also said to be responsible for its surviving up to this point, but there’s a limit to what his strong will can achieve as the airline is now said to be failing.
It is also said that the airline is fond of delaying flights due to low patronage and at times outright cancellation of flights. He is also said to be on the verge of losing the company he incorporated in 2008, as the airline is said to be violating standard aviation rules of safety, efficiency, comfort and quality service.
A source at Nigeria’s aviation regulatory body, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, said the commission knows the airline is not adhering to the globally recognised safety standard but are handicapped because the airline has a lot of powerful friends in the commission.
To further prove that the airline is failing financially, it is said to be relying heavily on the money it makes from ticket sales to fuel the plane, an act which constantly leads to flight delay and late payment of its weekly insurance, another act which is a serious breach of aviation regulations.
The shoddy way the airline is being operated is also said to have been reported to the NCAA, but they are yet to begin a query or an investigation.
-FEMI OYEWALE
