Abuja airport closure will cause revenue loss for FG agencies - Experts
- There is a looming loss of revenue by the aviation sector
- This is due to the planned closure of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport runway, Abuja
- This runway repairs will take place between February and March
Concerned stakeholders have faulted the alternative provisions for the planned closure of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport runway, Abuja between February and March.
Minister of state, aviation, Captain Hadi Sirika has a lot to do to convince stakeholders regrading his decision
According to The Guardian, the stakeholders said the move would bring much discomfort to air travelers and foreign airlines especially, forcing many to temporarily quit air travel to the northern part of the country.
The Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, will be closed for six weeks between February and March next year.
This was disclosed on Monday, December 19, by the minister of aviation for state, Hadi Sirika. Flights will now be diverted to the Kaduna Airport, from where buses will take passengers back to Abuja in a two-hour road journey.
With airlines and passengers quitting the region, revenue accruing to the regulatory agencies and ancillary services will drop, making required operations further difficult, the stakeholders argued.
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The Chairman, Governing Board of the Nigerian Aviation Safety Initiative (NASI), Captain Dung Pam, said though temporary closure of the runway was for safety concerns, the effects would be too huge on the already troubled sector.
Pam said that the Kaduna airport would not be able to cope with the traffic that would be coming in, in terms of all the fixed-wing aircraft.
“It is going to be a serious dislocation of the nexus of our air travel system. Every major airport in the country connects to Abuja and Lagos.
“So, to have that place completely shut down for six weeks will be a huge blow to travelling public. They will be the ones that will be the worst of,” Captain Pam said.
On his part, aviation security consultant, Group Captain John Ojikutu, said that the choice of Kaduna for air traffic diversion would scare most of the foreign airlines away.
According to him, with the security issues in the northern parts of the country, none of the American and European airlines will fly to Kaduna.
His words: “My only worry is that they want to use Kaduna for traffic and I ask the question, why can’t they use Minna? Minna may not be as good as Kaduna, but a 737 can land in Minna.
“For them to want to use Kaduna for foreign airlines, I have my doubts that the airlines will go there. It is for security reasons. The way security is built in the north is different from how we have built it here.
“If the people that are creating problems all over the place want to draw world attention to themselves, they will go to that place and create the problem. The Americans and European airlines have their minds on that.
They do not want a situation where they would be brought into the conflicts, in such a way as they will be used as scapegoats. So, they would rather go to Lagos to land.”
Meanwhile, Sirika will engage the industry’s stakeholders on issues arising from the proposed closure of the airport on Thursday, January 5.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the meeting would afford him the opportunity to officially inform the sector’s players of the decision.
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