SAHCO Saves 27% Cost, Investing In Technology, As MD Proposes Tax Waivers

The Managing Director of Skyway Aviation Handling Company (SAHCO) Plc, Mrs. Adenike Aboderin says the company has “enhanced financial resilience by improving efficiency, investing in technology, and fostering partnerships with all our clients leading to a 27% year-on-year cost reduction for us through new digital tools and streamlining process. Future growth for us is bright. We’re diversifying.”

Speaking in a press conference, Aboderin said the company hopes “to continue to grow at the current run rates; and we’re investing in our workforce because it’s all about the people. If you don’t have the right people and you have all this technology, you know, it’s a challenge. So, you must match the people to the technology you are deploying. Maybe it’s hard technology which is the GSEs or if it’s the soft technology, the soft ones. So, you must match them.

We’ve delivered strong growth, 82% profit growth, 57% revenue growth, and a rise in assets of 13 billion. So, I think if we continue on this growth strategy and with our partnership with our clients, we will continue to surpass our goals and the future seems bright.”

Aboderin however said ground handlers face heavy capital demands for modern equipment and technology and spend millions of euros annually on equipment, yet, recover costs in naira from domestic airlines, making profitability increasingly difficult. She proposed extended tax holidays, customs duty waivers on equipment and spare parts and access to low interest and long tenure loans to enable operators expand capacity and improve service quality.

On challenges in the aviation industry, she said: “You all know what we’re facing in the aviation industry. Overheads are going higher; inflation, foreign exchange, cost of utilities, and most of our equipments, spare parts, most of them are foreign-based. So, that has brought a lot of headwinds and impractical outcomes for us.

Despite that, you know, SAHCO continues to deliver value to its stakeholders, clients, airlines across over 22 networks and locations, as of today. We have the vision of being the leading brand handling company in West Africa and even beyond West Africa, sub-Saharan Africa.”

She said the company’s direct cost went up due to increased pricing. Gross profit has gone up to $17 billion from $12 billion. Profit before tax was $10 billion, up from $5 billion, a 6 percent increase. Income tax expenses was $1 billion. A total comprehensive income for the period as at September 30, 2025 was $8.5 billion.

The company invested heavily in assets, infrastructure, and also equipments, green equipments, sustainable equipments and is phasing out gradually, aged equipment.

“We have started the e-billing. So just to improve faster processing, bills are sent electronically, and payment is also made electronically. We’ve set up a new department called the Resource Allocators Department so that there’s efficiency in utilizing our scarce resources and few resources, both brick and mortar equipments and people resources,” she said.

“We have developed an in-house flight app. We’ve developed a budget app. Now, we stick strictly to budget performance. We monitor that monthly. So we have an app that guides us. That’s why you see a lot of efficiency on the financial side; document software. We have just gone into cybersecurity to strengthen our controls and to safeguard our software,” she added.

She said SAHCO has the most certifications of all handlers and that “currently, we make sure we’re on top-notch in all our certifications and standards and compliance, both at IATA and also on the cargo side. On RE3, which is for cargo security, we have certifications in Lagos, Port Harcourt, and Abuja and we’re currently doing an upgrade again because of the new TSA regulations by the government. We were the first to get all the machines that the TSA requested. We have renewed our dangerous goods authorization and we have some staff going to Singapore to get trained.”

Aboderin said SAHCO is in a partnership with some African countries on training and intends to start opening training school for commercialized trainings that are aviation-related.

“We are building a new training school, larger than the one we have here,” she said.

“We are also working with the state governments, sub-national level. We come in. We bring our expertise. Unfortunately, we wish they would have brought us in from the beginning so that the design of the airports, the handlers can have a say because usually, when they invite us in, it’s after everything is already in place and that’s usually a challenge for us because sometimes, we have to tell them that this building can’t work here. We are working with a few state governments,” she said.

“We serve over 25 domestic and international airlines and the new airlines we bought in the last eight months are Air Tanzania, Value Jet Regional. We already do Value Jet, but they are going regional. Air Algeria. Ethiopian Airlines, they got it. Ethiopian Airlines, Abuja. So those are the new clients, and United Nigeria too, regional. We’re the ones doing United Nigeria regional.

On GICs, we have the most GICs in West Africa and we spend a lot of money on our GICs because we’re trying to phase out the old ones into electric, which is less cost intensive.”

On cargo, cold room, we had to improve our cold rooms. We’re improving that. In Lagos, we recalibrated the software, improved on it, and also our dollies, so that we can read information online real time. We have some customers, because of the standard of our cold rooms, they truck all the way from western countries, and also Ghana is about to start. So, they truck their goods here. So, it’s like a transit for them. This is a transit place for them. So, from here, they distribute to UK and from UK to other parts of the world; and because it’s temperature sensitive, it has to be lifted within maybe 24 hours or 48 hours to be distributed to the shops in the UK. So, our cold chain infrastructure has to be top notch. We spent a lot of money on our cold chain infrastructure,” she said.

“In Abuja too, we’ve improved our cold room and we have plans on buying a new cold room, installing that Q1 in Abuja, and also improving the one in Port Harcourt. We’re looking at e-commerce for Q1, making e-commerce to the global standards. So, it’s an online logistics business with tracking and reliable delivery. We are just going to use it to complement what we currently have. We have some partners locally that we are partnering with.”

She said by 2026 end, target is for African countries, saying “we started SIPA SACHOL Aviation, a new subsidiary for helicopter services to oil and gas. That’s a new subsidiary. You know, because like I said, we have to diversify. There is SS travels for ticketing, tolls and logistics; and also, we have our airport lounge which has always been there. So, the diversification is to African countries and also SS Aviation which is a helicopter services.”