Ime Akpan
For more two decades, airport passenger numbers have grown significantly, propelled by a combination of deregulation, population growth, and regional development.
The development therefore places immense pressure on airports.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) predicts that by 2037, passenger numbers could double to 8.2 billion.
Consequently, airports are investing in automation as a response to rising passenger numbers and the challenges of capacity constraints.
It was therefore in the light of the foregoing that the federal government announced at the end of the weekly federal executive council meeting on Wednesday March 31, 2021, that it had approved a contract of N10 billion for the automation of Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt and Enugu international airports.
Flooded with euphoria as he was surrounded by journalists, the minister of aviation, Mr. Hadi Sirika who ‘broke’ the news explained that automation would facilitate common use of terminal equipment required for sharing airport resources in accordance with IATA Recommendation 1797, provide for baggage drop, which makes it faster and quicker for passenger processing, help in baggage reconciliation system which enables the tracking of baggage from the time passengers arrive up to the time they drop their baggage.
“This allows flexible sharing of resources for check-in and boarding, such as servers, work stations, associated peripherals between airlines and handling agencies present at the airport,” he said.
“Another service to be provided is local departure control systems. This is aimed at airlines that are still using manual procedures like locals, domestic and charter etc.
“The system secures and accelerates these operations while ensuring better service for passengers. The system also accepts mobile phone boarding pass or home printed boarding pass, which we didn’t have before,” he said.
“Automatically, it goes into the system and then goes into the aircraft itself. So, this will eliminate the issue of missing baggage or mix-up of baggage to arrive at another location not intended,” Sirika said gleefully.
Ordinarily, the news which would have called for a celebration in the aviation community became a source of great concern to aviation stakeholders because the five international gateways had already been penciled for concession.
“Why approve huge fund for automation of airports that have been earmarked for concession? If the government is bent on giving out the five airports to concessionaires, is it necessary again to spend such huge amount of money on its automation? What will the concessionaire then do after taking over the facilities? they query.
Reacting to the development, the head, research and corporate travel at Zenith Travel, Mr. Olumide Ohunayo said since the fiver airports had been penciled for concession, the federal government as spending money for someone to reap from where they did not sow.
“The money approved has to do with airport operating system, the departure gates, cameras and other system. It was approved for were equipment to be used at terminal buildings for the five major airports.
“At what point did the government decide on this? We never saw any advert, bidding for it and suddenly, a price came out from nowhere and it was approved. The same federal executive council that said they were stopping the national carrier has gone ahead to approve over N20 billion for the same project from palliatives. You are giving N5 billion to those who are living and gave N22 billion to a child that has not been born.
“So, there is something wrong in the disposition of cash in the industry of late and the approval from the federal executive council. Invariably, with this approval, it is assumed concession of the airports is done and dusted,” he added.
For his part, aviation analyst and chief executive officer of Centurion Security, Group Capt John Ojikutu (retd) said aviation security is a matter for national security council not for aviation and should therefore not be included in the airport concession.
Government, he advised, should not include any aspect of aviation security in any part of the airport concession in whatever form it is given as public offer.
“First, what has our government and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) agreed together as ‘airport management solutions’ for our airports security without the agreement of the government security agencies working at our airports?
“We need to be careful in awarding the contract to anyone without ensuring the national security, which the aviation security as an element of the national security; the input of the national security council is very necessary.
“The amount involved is an amount for consideration by the national security council and not by the ministry of aviation alone. Note, the $20/passenger for security should not be for aviation, but for national security council approval.
“We need to find out the requirements and the demand of the ICAO in Annex 17 from member States.
“Chapter one of ICAO Annex 17 demands that member States should set up a national aviation security committee not national civil aviation security committee,” Ojikutu said.
For the chief executive officer of Westlink, Capt. Ibrahim Mshelia, infrastructural upgrade should form part of the conditions for the concessionaire to fulfill, not the other way round.
“Any concessionaire who is not able or willing to bring in money, make it better and create more jobs is not what Nigerians should present at this time of national difficulty.
Anything short of this in my opinion is not in the interest of Nigeria in our current state and should be resisted by all well meaning Nigerians,” he added.
