Yemisi Izuora
Skyway Aviation Handling Company (SAHCO) Plc, has set a new performance records with the commissioning of Cool Dollies at the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos.
The equipment is reportedly the first of its kind in West Africa amongst other multi-million naira Ground Support Equipment (GSE) to further augment its services to its clients.
The Ground Support equipment unveiled by SAHCO include Cool dollies, Pallet dollies, Pushbacks, Air Conditioning Units (ACUs), water and toilet bowers.
The three Cool Dollies which can be described as Mobile Cold rooms were manufactured by Bombelli a reknowned G.S.E. manufacturer from Italy, has the capacity of taking a pallet or two AKE container load of temperature sensitive shipment from the aircraft to the cold rooms or freezers in the warehouse.
Also, Cool dollies are equipped with an automatic electric powered engine that is environmentally friendly, and are fitted with data loggers to catalogue the pressure and temperature level of the compartment to protect its contents.
In addition, at the event two 45 tonnes Push Backs were commissioned, which were manufactured by Goldhofer, a German G.S.E manufacturer, has the capacity of pushing back all wide body aircrafts except an A380 aircraft, is user friendly, and equipped with a tier 4 engine.
Speaking at the unveiling, Mr. Basil Agboarumi, the Managing Director/CEO, SAHCO, said that the new equipment would be added to its arrays of facilities at the airport, explaining that SAHCO believed in continuous enhancement of facilities and would continue to invest in modern equipment in a bid to satisfy its clients, especially the airlines who he described as very important segment of its business.
Agboarumi lauded the Board of Directors of SAHCO for giving its approval for the purchase of the equipment, but appealed to the Federal Government to also grant the Ground Handling companies customs duty waivers on acquisition of equipment.
He said: “SAHCO is doing this because we believe in adding values to the environment, we operate in. Despite the current economic challenge in Nigeria, we are doing this at this time. These cool dollies are the first of its type in Nigeria. It can be used for the movement of perishable cargo from cold rooms to airlines and vice versa.
“We also have the Pushbacks, which are the real money spinners, the ACUs, Water and toilet browsers, which were fabricated by our engineers here in Nigeria. These we do to help reduce the search for foreign exchange, which is always hard to come by. The world is going green and SAHCO as a company is also in compliance with carbon emission.
“These equipment were manufactured in Europe and it’s easier to deliver these to those in Europe without additional cost of shipping and clearing, but for us, we pay more for same equipment as we need to pay for shipping and clearing of the equipment at our seaports.”
Also speaking at the occasion, Engr. Toyin Oriowo, the Assistant General Manager, Engineering and Maintenance, SAHCO, said that all the equipment acquired were carbon emission complaint and stated that the spare parts of the equipment were readily available in the market and commended the Management and Board of SAHCO for acquiring such equipment at this time especially for the support of enabling his team to produce G.S.E from locally sourced materials.
He emphasized that the three Toilet bowsers and two Water bowsers has the capacity of servicing wide body aircrafts, as a result of looking inwards due to the high cost and unavailability of forex that made his team come together to manufacture the G.S.E.