*We have met 95% of demands, creating industry chaos unnecessary, says Sanusi
Nigeria’s oldest commercial airline, Aero Contractors, and the union of pilots and engineers are in another round of faceoffs over outstanding benefits of redundant staff in the care of the airline.

The Guardian learnt that some of the workers, who were laid off in 2017 were yet to be compensated, much to the chagrin of the National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE).

But in a pushback, the management of the airline said the fresh protest by unionists was unnecessary given that Aero Contractors has settled 95 per cent of the outstanding benefits with measures in place to pay the balance soon.

NAAPE, in an official memo made available recently, demanded the payment of outstanding redundancy benefits of its members, accusing the management of Aero Contractors of depriving the affected former workers access to their entitled benefits.

The protest letter, addressed to the management of the airline, noted that their members have been deprived of their fundamental entitlements and denied the rightful collection of their redundancy benefits in the last seven years.

Given the anguish and mental agonies suffered by them, NAAPE was compelled to protest through the letter and express bitterness over management’s alleged lackadaisical attitude, insincerity and insensitivity to the continued well-being of these Nigerians.

“The Aero management has rendered many workers, including our members (pilots and engineers), redundant since 2017 and every conceivable effort to ensure that they get their due benefits has been frustrated by the management to date for no good reason. More so, when it was your management that sent them off after meritorious service to the Nigerian aviation sector,” the letter read in part.

But on the contrary, the Managing Director of Aero Contractors, Capt. Ado Sanusi, said the airline diligently worked to address and resolve the issue.
Sanusi expressed the management’s disappointment in NAAPE that after calling for a meeting regarding the payment of outstanding benefits and one scheduled for April 17, they decided to go public on the same matter. He reiterated that the company had successfully disbursed redundancy payments to at least 94.94 per cent of affected staff.

“Admittedly, we still have outstanding financial commitments to a few affected staff. However, plans are underway to defray these, and we have been engaging with affected staff to carry them along in all the company has been doing and going through.

“For the avoidance of doubt out of a total number of 237 staff affected by the redundancy, 225 have been paid off representing 94.94 per cent of those affected. Nonetheless, we still have a total of 12 outstanding staff that are yet to be paid.

“This represents about 5.06 per cent of the original population. Of this number, there are ATSSSAN members and nine belong to NAAPE. Efforts are being made in the near future to pay the outstanding to the staff,” Sanusi said. He added that the management empathizes with the discomfort and strain this experience has put on the affected individuals as well as the whole company, asking for more understanding towards resolving all outstanding issues.

He said Aero Contractors is willing to defray the balance but for the economic realities and the harsh operating environment. He explained that the operating environment within the aviation industry has been overwhelmingly challenging, with the company enduring significant challenges including two instances of cessation of operations for extended periods. The first was from August 31, 2016, to late December 2016, and the second was from July 20, 2022, to December 4, 2022.

“After about a five months shutdown we have assiduously worked on defraying outstanding payments and commitments, not only to affected personnel but to ensure the viability of operations and to continue as a going concern.

“This is despite additional challenges posed by escalating cost of operations, particularly the substantial cost of the fuel component of our operational costs which has reached N1800/litre, and severely constrained our finances and affected allocations to various expense headings, including terminal benefits owed to former employees. Nobody could have envisaged the exchange rate hitting N2000/1$ and a bird strike grounding one of our aircraft for about a year.

“Those are our realities, and we expect the unions too to understand. The industry is seriously challenged and having a calculated attempt to further disrupt it is not in the interest of anyone.

“On our part, we remain resilient. We are putting resources into our equipment and by the time we rally back to having five aircraft in operation, it will help the airline’s financial stability and take us a short while to clear all backlogs,” Sanusi said.