Industry experts conversant with the operations of the presidential jet, Boeing Business Jet (BBJ), which is Nigeria’s Air Force 1, acquired by President Olusegun Obasanjo, 22 years ago, are of the view that the federal government should change the aircraft because of the high cost of maintenance.

Obviously, as aircraft gets older, it costs more to maintain in order to keep it airworthy and for presidential jet, extra care is taken to sustain its safety status.

The Managing Director and CEO of Aero Contractors, Captain Ado Sanusi, told THISDAY that the presidential jet belong to the Boeing 737 New Generation 800 variant (B737-800 NG), which production has been stopped by Boeing and the production line has been replaced by Boeing 737 MAX. Although Boeing is still producing the spares and that of Boeing Classics, B737-200 and others, but the spares are costlier and cost of maintenance is higher.

He noted that currently there is high demand of these spares because those who own Boeing classics and NGs are holding on to them until issues concerning Boeing 737 MAX are sorted out, hence the high demand for spares of these aircraft types until they are eventually replaced with MAX.

Sanusi also disclosed that there is shortage of Boeing 737 NG engines because during COVID-19, attention was directed at producing health related equipment and some factories that hitherto produced engines diverted to producing medical equipment and now that there is demand for aircraft engine the supply is not meeting the demand.

Sanusi added that because of the engine of these aircraft types have been flown for a long time, most of the engines need performance restoration and most of the shops that can undertake this overhaul are already full.

Overall, he noted that maintaining this aircraft costs more because of the age and the fact that it is no more in production and there is high demand for the spares, which drives up the cost.

“So, they ought to upgrade the aircraft. It is good to modernize your equipment. The challenge really is that the aircraft may not have operated many hours like the commercial aircraft on service, but even with low utilization, if you keep them they will look new but the fact is that they are outdated. So, what is done is either you advance the existing aircraft or you replace it. There is a limit in which you can advance existing aircraft because it has flown many hours.  Currently there is better technology which quickly makes existing ones outmoded; so, the best is to replace the presidential jet,” he said.

According to a study carried out by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), technical aging is the inherent effect of age on the aircraft over time.

“Materials degrade with time, and each aircraft sub-assembly ages at its own rate depending on calendar time and flight hours and cycles. The total aircraft’s aging is found by the combination of the aging of all its individual components. Technical aging is influenced by the following factors, which define the operator’s context: aircraft design, technology and material (aluminum, titanium, steel, composites…); scope of the maintenance (cabin, specific operator programme, modifications); maintenance program (check interval: block concept, semi or fully equalized).”

The study stated that the purposes of technical, economic and financial aging technical, economic and financial aging have different purposes. Technical and economic aging are used to estimate the aging effect on the aircraft itself. The purpose of financial aging is to plan the budget and build provisions for future expenses (although very difficult to predict