The managing director of the Federal Airports Authority of
Nigeria (FAAN), Capt. Rabiu Yadudu, has said that the general guideline is that
any airport that will have less than one million passenger traffic per annum is
unviable.
Speaking at a round table in Abuja recently, Yadudu revealed that 19 out of “our 22 airports are not viable.”
He said the guideline used to be 500,000 “but now it is a million per annum, and this is based on statistics and data, not sentiments.”
Quoting the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) standards, Yadudu explained that “for you to break even and make profit, you need at least a million persons using the airport per year.
“We have some airports that have 10,000, some 20,000. But it is not everything you can judge in black and white. If you look at our population, we have very few airports. I think the challenge before us is to see how we can motivate or stimulate traffic, and that has a link to the general economy of the country.” He added.
He said he would prefer to have the airports unviable than not to have the airports at all.
“The potential is there, we just need to provide the enabling environment while we wait for that time somebody needs to nurture the sector like a baby. That is the job of FAAN. Given our population, we need to cultivate these airports. I know they are unviable, but when I look at the overall national interest, it is better than not having the airports,” he said.
Yadudu further said he would neither advise any state governor who wants to build an airport to do it or not to do it but would “give him information to guide him in deciding.
“I don’t say do it or don’t do it. It will surprise you to know that 19 out of our 22 airports are not viable. When you have twenty businesses and only two are bringing in profits, you don’t have money. But let us have the airports first and find ways of making them more viable,” he said.
On the state of the airports, the managing director said he was familiar with all the issues since he was already in the system before he became FAAN helmsman.
“I was the director of airport operations for more than two years before I was appointed managing director. So, most of the issues that are on ground are familiar to me.
“I have a lot of prior experience in different areas of aviation. I also have a lot of experience in airport management and development.
Having become the managing director, he said he has no reason not perform to expectations as “I am working very hard to see that we succeed.”
Aviation is for everyone, and we are collaborating with our stakeholders to gauge what we are doing, which we use as our feedback to fine-tune our operations. We have started bi-monthly meetings with Aircraft Owners Association of Nigeria.
“We do know we have a lot of infrastructure and equipment all around Nigeria. It is clear to us that a lot of our equipment and infrastructure are dilapidated, and we have been working to resolve all issues, from the smallest to the biggest. An example is Enugu Airport.
“It had been bad for about six years. We decided to do the right thing. So we said, in the interest of our security, safety and our reputation as a nation we have to close it, fix it and put it back into operation. So we have closed it. We have started work to fix it. I am assuring everyone that when we reopen the Enugu International Airport, it will look like a new one. We are fixing the runway, drainage system, medical facility, security, even the staff quarters. We are hoping that when we resume operations, there it will become a 24-hour airport. Currently, it is from sunrise to sunset.
“From that, we are coming down to the basic issues of maintenance of our system and equipment. The most important people in this area are the personnel, our staff. These are the people that bring about achievement. No equipment or infrastructure can perform on its own. It is the personnel that will have to deliver, and so we are working in that area to make sure that our staff is fully and competently trained, with instructors from ICAO and some from within.
“We are getting a lot of support from the National Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to train our people and also get some of our best materials to develop them to become our instructors, which is like an advanced kind of capacity building. This will ensure that whatever we do with our facilities and equipment will be in good hands who have been properly trained.
“Aviation is a heavily-regulated industry and so whatever we are doing we ensure we are not merely fully in compliance but also above performance thresholds. Once you are in compliance you are assured of adequate safety and security, and we are striving to ensure that we achieve compliance that is above the basic threshold. Not only Nigeria but even neighbouring countries will be able to benefit in terms of what we are doing in training our people.
“Organisations like ICAO are using highly-skilled individuals from other countries to train people all over the world including Nigeria, so we are also striving to make sure that Nigerians are capable of doing that very soon,” said Yadudu.
