The acting managing director of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Mr. Matthew Pwajok has said that closing Runway 18L at the domestic wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos to fix airfield lights is meant to provide an alternative in case the international runway has any issue.
Pwajok stated this at the 26th annual conference of the League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC) held in Lagos recently.
“The way we have been operating using only one runway at night means if we have problem with the international runway, it means we can’t use any other runway,” he said.
He said every stakeholder “is collaborating to make sure that we can all endure it and at the end of it, Nigeria will be better off and Lagos will be better off.”
He said the decision to close the runway to aircraft movement was difficult to make but it had to be done, adding that the major stakeholders were able to manage the situation.
“It has been very strenuous but it is also something that we have done before in Lagos when the international runway itself was closed and we had to use the local runway, shorter one.
“We developed new procedures, developed contingency plans and we work collaboratively with sister agencies and the operators.
“It has been strenuous but we are doing it and we doing it well. There were initial delays but now I think we are on top of it.
“And it’s something we had to do. We have been anxiously waiting for the lighting systems on Runway 18L. It is something that is a necessary evil, we have to shut down and work on it to have a very good runway,” he added.
Pwajok also said NAMA’s main attention “has been to complete some very critical and essential projects about safety and enhancing capacity of the system.”
He listed one of such projects as the safe tower which, according to him, needs to be upgraded.
“”We are embarking on the software and hardware upgrade of this safe tower project which provides an automated air traffic management system for Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt. It is a very critical project…, enhances the efficiency of the air traffic management system.
“The other project is the total radar coverage upgrade. It was commissioned in 2010, over 10 years of using this system. We are upgrading it to the latest version called the top sky system and that project provides for enhancement of the efficiency in the capacity and the effectiveness of the total radar coverage of Nigeria in nine radar locations across Nigeria.
“We also have the navigational systems we are installing. At the moment, we have done over 10 airports with instrument landing systems Category 2 and we have done instrument landing systems Category 3 in Lagos and Abuja. We are currently doing Katsina, Port Harcourt and Kano.
“The other project, the aeronautical information service (AIS) has been ongoing for a long time. We are hoping to get it completed before the end of the year. It is the automation of the information management system for 24 airports and also NAMA headquarters,” he added.
