Aviation stakeholder Samuel Caulcrick has called for thorough structural reforms of the Bank of Industry (BoI), including recapitalisation, to enable it to effectively support Nigeria’s airline operators amid a rising financial crisis.
The call follows a recent appeal by the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) to President Bola Tinubu, urging the government to recapitalise the BoI as a dedicated source of single-digit interest loans for the aviation sector. The President has asked the operators to formally submit their request in writing.
Indigenous carriers are grappling with a sharp spike in aviation fuel prices. Last week, operators complained about a surge in Jet A1 price from N900 in February to N3,300 in April 2026, a nearly 300 percent increase. They lamented that this places intense financial pressure on their operations and threatened to suspend operations without government intervention.
Caulcrick warned that the current financing structure of Nigerian airlines is unsustainable. Local carriers are forced to rely on commercial loans with interest rates between 30 and 35 percent, far above the global average of about three percent. He acknowledged that BoI offers lower lending rates of about nine to 10 percent but expressed concerns about its limited liquidity to meet the aviation sector’s capital-intensive demands.
He insisted that without access to affordable, sector-specific funding, operators will continue to depend on high-interest borrowing for critical operations such as fuel procurement, an approach he described as economically unviable.
To address this, Caulcrick advocated far-reaching reforms beyond capital injection. He called for an amendment of the BoI’s enabling Act to designate it as the sole financial transaction hub for Nigeria’s aviation industry. Under this, all aviation-related financial flows would be centralised through the BoI, creating a stable pool of capital in both local and foreign currencies. He insisted that such a system would reduce reliance on multiple commercial banks, cut transaction costs, and establish a more favourable interest rate regime to support aircraft acquisition, maintenance, and other operational needs.
