FEDERAL Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has said that its Internally Generated Revenues (IGR) were dwindling owing to the huge amount of debts by airlines and has asked Federal Government for some appropriation to enable it connect the already existing Murtala Muhammed International Airport terminal with the one currently being constructed by the Chinese.
The managing director of FAAN, Engineer Saleh Dunoma made this known at the Aviation House, headquarters of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) during the visit of the Senate Committee on Aviation.
According to the FAAN helmsman, the airport authority was expending its dwindling revenue to handle bad runways in Abuja, Enugu and Akure and the airlines were not paying because of their dwindling revenue as a result to reduction of traffic.
He also blamed the inability of the airlines to pay o the scarcity of jet A1 stating that airlines were already finding it difficult and FAAN could not squeeze them out.
“Facilities are being overstretched and FAAN as an organization in 2016 do not have any appropriation. This organization solely depends on its IGR for maintenance and semi-capital projects.”
“As it is now, FAAN is working on two or three airports’ runways that have critical issues. We are already deciding on the Abuja runway and we will be seeking the public’s co-operation as the runway will be closed. Also there is the Enugu Airport runway and that of Akure which may not be much problem because of the low traffic volume there.”
“We are currently working on six terminals, four of which are being built by the Chinese and we need funding in Lagos so we can connect the existing terminal to the new structure so they will not stand apart and be two terminals.”
” we also want to prioritize the construction of the Abuja and Lagos terminals so we can finish them and by saying that we do not mean that we are stopping work on the others, no. We want to ensure that we finish them because of the volume of traffic.”
While responding Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Aviation, Bala Ibn Na’allah commented FAAN stating that with its resources the airport authority was doing well.
He however called on FAAN, seeing the navigation challenges to clearly mark the runway as that would help improve safety.
” if the ILS has technical issues, it will not be an issue if the runways are marked properly. You don’t need to deplete your IGRÂ to do runway marking. This will help safety and aircraft approaching if they don’t see the navaids will see the markings clearly.”
He also asked FAAN to scrap the gate fees for people who work across all the airports in the country describing the charges as immoral.
“A situation where workers at the airport pay toll charges is morally wrong when they work here. MDÂ FAAN look into that, workers at the airport must have access to their offices and even those who are trying to catch flights, the payments can be collected when they are leaving or after the passenger has been dropped so as for them not to miss this flights. That is how it’s done world over, five minutes can make a lot of difference.”
