Our plan to rejig airports, revamp cargo potential — FAAN MD

State Correspondent

In the last few weeks, begging and extortion at the country’s international airports have become topical, leading to the constitution of a task force.

In this interview, Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, Olubunmi Kuku, discussed deterrent measures and screening systems that have been put in place to eliminate it. Kuku, who spoke on Channels TV, also shed light on how the country can tap into its air cargo potential and drive passenger traffic.

Neighbor recounts how woman abused 12 years old niece, burnt her with hot knife and forced…..0.00 / 0.00

Excerpts:

What are you doing about those harassing people for money at our airports?

As you know, there are multiple security agencies at the airport. The Aviation Security team referred to as AVSEC is responsible for overseeing and coordinating all of the security agencies at the airports. Over the last few weeks, we have put a task force together. By the way, this has been a recurring task force from the past administration. This time, we have been quite lucky to have it championed by the Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo; and the National Security Adviser. Given the fact that the NSA is responsible for coordinating the majority of these security agencies across the country and given that they are directly under his purview, we have met on several occasions.

We have deployed tactics and initiatives to ensure that there is visibility around individuals who are actually supposed to be at the airport and ensuring that when they are not supposed to be on duty, we are managing their activities. In addition, there are measures that have been put in place to ensure that they are identified.

If you are asked for fund at the airport, please ensure you report to those particular individuals. Given the fact that the airports are a major gateway into the country, this is a deterrent. Over the next couple of weeks, you will be seeing additional initiatives and measures. Very simple things such as QR code where you can just scan, send messages either to us at FAAN or SERVICOM will be unveiled. I recall meeting with the Director General of SERVICOM last week, we are working tactically. Severe measures have been put in place to make sure that anyone found wanting will definitely be punished. This is also a warning and a call to the agencies and individuals to please not patronise them for any reason. There are measures to ensure that we have the right security and screening equipment where possible at most of the terminals to make sure that prohibited materials that are being sorted through are actually going through the screening machines. Other than the secondary searches that happen pre-boarding, the Minister has made provisions for additional security equipment where necessary so that we can stop some of the manual searches. That is also dependent on the country into which you are flying.

Is there a timeframe as to when we will start having our airports look the way we want them to look?

There is a timeframe. We have put an implementation roadmap together. I think in the immediate, over the next six months, what we are looking for is just the basic infrastructure. If you go to MMIA, look at the lighting systems and the immediate environment. In the medium term, which is where we try to focus on larger infrastructure upgrades, expansion of the terminals and some are ongoing. At least we are looking to the next two to three years. If you look at airports like Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, we have started some minor rehabilitation works. There are some mistakes made in the past that we are looking to correct. We are working with a consortium of consultants and engineers to make sure that we can actually correct them. I can assure you that over the next six months, as we get into the holiday period, there will be dramatic improvement from the cooling perspective.

Cargo potential

Related News
Tinubu, Shettima, other VIPs now to pay tollgate fees at airports — Keyamo
Kenyan airports boss sacked after hours of power outage left tourists stranded
Air passengers should undergo BP, sugar level checks at airports — Reps
There actually exists a huge potential for cargo in Nigeria. Largely, we are an import-based nation, especially from an air cargo perspective. I believe that over the last few years we have processed about 280,000 tonnes of cargo. Indeed there is still potential. However, if you look at all of the airports that have sprung up today and the airports that we have in place, it is important to ensure that we are actually citing what we deem to be cargo terminals either close enough to markets where they are able to either aggregate or potentially consolidate the products that they are looking to push out. It is also important because I have seen some airports that have been designated as cargo, but you think of how to evacuate the products from either the centres or the areas that they are looking to move to the airports.

Leveraging private sector

I do believe that we need to start looking at leveraging the private sector a lot more. There have been conversations around concessions. I think I will stay away from that because it’s quite topical, but I do say private sector participation is a way to drive this. There are various modules that we can leverage, management – contracts concessions as well as setting up special purpose vehicles. I do believe that for the cargo infrastructure that we have today, there is nothing that stops us from making that cargo infrastructure …with entities that have the existing expertise and technical capabilities to help us drive this through. Setting up special purpose vehicles, partnering with them and potentially seeding the infrastructure that we have already is very clear direction in terms of how we take this forward.

Driving passenger traffic

You don’t drive passenger traffic through building new airports; rather, what you do or what drives passenger traffic is actually the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, growth or the economic activities. My feedback as we have all of these new airports springing up is really to think at the bottom of the value chain to say what are the key activities whether it is trade activities, manufacturing or tourism related activities that can actually drive traffic into those airports. From our end at FAAN, we are engaging very closely with international organisations such as International Air Transport Association, IATA, and the Federal Ministry of Aviation largely around how we can drive additional routes both from the domestic and international perspectives. We are also having conversations and putting initiatives in place to make airports within Nigeria become transit hubs. I know these conversations have been lingering, but the state of the infrastructure is also critical in terms of how we make these airports hubs.

(The Vanguard)

Photo Credit: Prompt Media