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'The credo-BEYOND YOUR DREAMS that has been a watchword for the smooth operation of national carrier, Discovery Air seems to be falling apart over what insiders tagged as the Airline’s huge debt profile.
Sources revealed that the company is presently enmeshed in financial crisis which led to the recent resignation of 7 pilots who complained the company owes them more than 5 months payment.
Discovery Air Chairman, Tunde Babalola’s financial recklessness was alleged to be the genesis of the company’s present predicament.
The young man allegedly collected some bank loans which he used for his oil business and he didn’t pay back, and when he floated Discovery Air and asked for banks support they all shut the door in his face judging from his debt record.
Insiders reveal that Babalola’s strong will was what he has been using to push the company forward and all that is falling apart as he is on the verge of losing his company that was incorporated in 2008 on the values of Safety, Effeciency, Comfort and Quality Service.
A source hinted that the Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulation knows that the airline is not adhering to the globally recognised safety standard but they have allegedly breached the aviation standard as the Discovery Airline is claimed to have a lot of friends in NCAA.
Some of the indications that the company is not financially capable is the practice perfected by the company to rely on the money it makes on the sales of ticket to fuel the plane, an operation that frequently leads to flight delay and also is the weekly payment of insurance which is a serious breach of aviation regulations.
The unhealthy operation of the airline is claimed to have been reported to the NCAA which is yet to query or make an investigation.
It is also revealed that the two aircrafts owns by the company went for C-Check at the same time which sounded off the company’s battle to maintain its stand in the sector.
Paper Mache spoke with the Chairman/MD of Discovery Airline and he explained that he owns the company 100 percent and he has 200 staffers working for him.
When asked if it was true that the airline depends on ticket sales to fuel the aircraft he responded ‘how is that possible? The ticket sales is not more than 5 million naira, so its very degrading to say I monitor the sales myself to fuel the planes’.
On the allegation of owing salaries, Babalola said ‘ if we are having a financial difficulty, its expected because ours is a new company but we are not. How can a company they claimed is in financial mess is able to do a C-Check worth about a million dollars?’.
When he was informed that papermacheonline conducted its wn investigation and spoke with some staffers which confirmed they have not been paid, Babalola said ‘its not possible! If I have to discipline my staff, I will discipline them and that is different’.
The young airline operator later said ‘if they want to bring me down I would just shut the company and go back to my other business abroad’.
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