Minister of State for Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika,said dilapidated facilities at most of the country’s aerodromes have negatively affected the low passenger traffic currently recorded by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).
Sirika, in an interaction with the media late Monday night on the state of aviation, said Nigeria loses millions of dollars, adding that with the way things are, super jumbo airplanes and many more airlines cannot operate to the country without facilities to handle such aircraft.
These poor facilities have also not helped in rating Nigeria highly when it comes to global airports rating. This much was confirmed by the Managing Director of FAAN, Saleh Dunoma, last year when he told the Senate Ad hoc Committee on Aviation that obsolete nature of most of the facilities and equipment at the nation’s airports was responsible for the poor rating the nation’s airports got from an international travel agency.
Expressing his disappointment, Sirika said with the right facilities at the airports, Nigeria’s yearly traffic could be as high as 50 million, adding that many airlines that would have loved to come are delaying their decisions.
His words: “We cannot grow our airports with the way things are right now. Our airports are in pitiable situation. Jumbo planes like A380 cannot use our airports.
Today, we are doing 15 million passengers, but with the right facilities and the right things in place, we can do 50 million traffic yearly. “Research has shown that about 40 per cent of travellers like to transit in good airports.
The Dubai and Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam are good examples. Dubai Duty Free is worth over $1.2 billion.” He stated that this has informed the decision of government not to put money in the sector, adding that in most economies, the private sector is the engine of growth. According to him, the only option left is for government to concession the aerodromes, starting with the big four.
The big four airports are those in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano. Government has gone far in its bid to concession them for efficiency and to boost revenues from both aeronautical and non-aeronautical.
He was quick to say that government was concessioning and not privatising the airports against insinuations that it had already privatised them. The minister stated that there is the need to think of aviation as money-spinner, with potential to heavily contribute to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
He disclosed that government has concluded plans to have an aircraft maintenance facility in the country that would be private sector-driven, lamenting that aviation has management problem.
“The Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria since 1964 has not developed beyond what it is. We need to produce aviation managers. We need to have another aviation university to develop our sector. These are not grandiose. They are achievable and can be finished within four years.”
