The President of the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies, Yinka Folami, has confirmed readiness to collaborate with the Lagos Aviation School to end quackery, among its members.
The association disclosed that on Tuesday during the unveiling of a new building for the school in Lagos.
Speaking with journalists at the sideline of the event, the Group Managing Director of Finchglow Holdings, a parent company of the aviation school, Bankole Bernard, stated that the collaboration would increase the level of professionalism among travel agents.
He said, “The collaboration coming from NANTA is to increase the level of professionalism of their members. NANTA is interested in enhancing its members to end quackery. They want to increase the knowledge base of their members and I think that is a step in the right direction.
“We need to collaborate with as many as possible so that we can all be enlightened as core professionals and our industry will be better for it.
“Today, if you go to Singapore with a population of about five million people, they have about 4.5 million people registered with their national library, which signifies that they don’t joke with education and knowledge. So, we can replicate such in the aviation industry so we too can have trained professionals that can be exported into the rest of world.”
The Finchglow Holdings GMD also recounted the experience of how his love for travel and vision to create international standards in the aviation sector made him resign as a banker to set up Finchglow Travel years back.
“The idea of coming into the aviation industry started in 2002; I was a banker and I quit the job in 2003. In 2002, I wanted to go into the aviation industry to float an airline, but I realised that floating an airline is capital intensive and I didn’t have such capital. However, it is always good to start at the rock bottom; nobody climbs the ladder from the top,” he said.
He also explained why he decided to set up an aviation training school, saying, “Basically, this vision came when I visited the office of the International Air Transport Association in Madrid, Spain and I had a meeting with their then vice president and they told me that in the whole of Nigeria, they had less than 10 Approved Training Organisations. I wondered why we could have less than 10 approved ATOs in an environment where we have more than 200 million people.”
Representing the acting Director General of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, Chris Najom, Lagos Zonal Director of the agency, Bukola Teriba, applauded the stride of the school.
He enjoined the management to keep enhancing professionalism in the industry.
“We are happy with what you are doing. I understand we put you through a lot of scrutiny and you too will attest to the fact that it makes us better and makes the industry better for it. Once again, I want to congratulate you on this feat,” he declared.
