FAAN to evacuate un-serviceable aircraft from terminals

A visit to some of the country’s airports reveals that a substantial part of the tarmacs have been taken over by either abandoned, dilapidated or un-serviceable aircrafts, making airport users to ask questions whether the regulating agencies are performing their statutory duty of maintaining orderliness and checking the nuisance these rickety aircraft are constituting.

Yakubu Dati who is the General Manager, Public Relations of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) in this interview with ABIODUN FANORO, spoke on measures being taken to check the menace and the new trend where state governments now embark on building airports.

What is FAAN doing about the dilapidated aircraft that liter some of the country’s airports?

Yes, we have already commenced the processes of removing them because our airports are not where people should abandon their aircrafts. Those aircraft have owners and we have made effort to contact the owners and have given them time to take those aircraft out of there and after which we will take some steps to have them removed. But it is very important that those aircraft you see there have owners,, and because of that we also have fees accruable to us for the duration of time they are there, in form of parking fees and demurrage.

Those are issues the Business and Commercial department will look at, our legal department will also look at whatever encumbrances are involved, because about two years ago, we carried out similar exercise where we passed through the necessary processes and abandoned aircraft that were out were not removed were decimated and the entire environment cleared. We are also going to do that this year. Those are issues we need to clarify before we embark on such exercise because there are some who may have legal issues and commercial issues tied to them.

You will remember that last year we even had some of the aircraft with loans tied to them. So by the time you go and decimate them, the banks can also come in some of the aircraft may have been used as collateral, there are some of the issues. And that is why we are carefully going through the processes one after the other.

Recently, the Senate Committee on Aviation queried FAAN on utilisation of funds allocated for the refurbishing of airports in view of the reported poor state of the Port Harcourt Airport. What is the situation now?

They have been utilized appropriately across the airports. We have commissioned the popular General Aviation Terminal, the one we call Terminal One, the Lagos Airport, the Abuja Airport, the Domestic Terminal was commissioned, the Hajji Terminal, the Benin Airport was also completed and awaiting commissioning. The Ibadan Airport has been completed. The Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport has been commissioned, the Enugu International Airport has been completed and commissioned and has commenced domestic and international operations. There are quite some projects that have been commissioned and there are some that are on-going that have been of benefit to the sector.

Is it not a misplaced priority when state governments, that could not pay salaries of workers, embark on building airports?

We don’t have any position on whether state governments should build airports or not. But I believe the airport is seen as critical vehicle’s for development in every area, in every community and most time when people look at the viability of airports, they are looking at whether what comes from flights that come in, the tickets and all that but airports go beyond that because an airport can carry one man that can change the fortunes of that whole state. It enhances commerce, tourism, it enhances agriculture, that is why when you are looking at the airports on the economics balance sheet, you lose the point, because airports go beyond that, they are enablers for other areas of the economy to operate.

Airport creates access and access is development so most times, if you look at countries like Dubai, America and Europe where they have a very viable airport environment, is because the airports are tied to other aspects of the economy, it is not just operated because this flight comes in, how much do you make?

Last year out of the 254 billion dollar) that accrued for Africa from the export of agro-allied products, Nigeria conspicuously missed out simply because we have not developed cargo terminals in the states which would make it easy to evacuate these perishable products to where they could be exported. You had countries like Cameroun, Cote d’Ivoire, South Africa making millions of dollars in exports but because we have not developed our cargo potential, you find out that at the end of every harvest season, we have a lot of agricultural produce that are being wasted, the prices crashed because it is all over the place and we can not take them out. If you talk of cassava, the market is also out there and the by-products. We believe that if we operate at a level where airport becomes an enabler for people to export things like tomatoes, oranges, fruits, vegetables to where there are markets waiting out there, one, it will now becomes a key contributor to the economy. It will also impact on the farmers, it will also check the urban-rural migration because if I am earning dollars from my farm in the village, why will I come to the city to look for a white collar job? So, airports are just beyond terminals, flights and aircrafts.