Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) have said domestic airlines lose over N20 billion annually to flights cancellations owing to dearth of landing aids.
Last week, Aero Contractors from Lagos to Calabar returned to Lagos, after nearing Calabar airport due to poor visibility. The flight was unable to land because visibility was below the accepted weather minima and there was no instrument landing system at the airport.
During the Harmattan season last year and this year, airlines cancelled many flights and the Aero experience last week was occasioned by sudden appearance of haze, which lasted for about two weeks.
According to aviation experts, if all necessary equipment was provided at the airports, aircraft can land at zero visibility and many modern aircraft have Global Positioning System (GPS), which enables them to land with corresponding instrument on ground at the lowest visibility. But the failure to provide such safety critical equipment has made it difficult for the airlines to utilise the GPS in the aircraft.
Seasoned pilot and Deputy Managing Director of Arik Air, Captain Ado Sanusi confirmed that last week alone the airline cancelled three flights to Benin, three flights to Asaba and two flights to Osubi in Warri each day and when multiplied by the number of passengers for the aircraft type that operates to such airports that airlifts about 70 passengers and at the cost of N25,000 to N30, 000 per ticket, “the amount we lose is humongous.”
Sanusi said that huge amount of money is being lost regularly and the only way to put an end to these losses is for the Federal Airports Authoity of Nigeria (FAAN) and other concerned authorities to install instrument landing system (ILS) at the airports.
Many of the airports in Nigeria do not have the equipment and some of the airports also do not have airfield lighting system (AFL); so some airports can only be used during the day and when there is poor visibility such daily light service is shut out for safety reasons.
Executive Chairman of AON, Captain Nogie Meggison suggested that airlines might be losing over N50 billion annually to forced cancellations due to poor visibility occasioned by bad weather that could be overcome by availability of landing aids.
“There have been skeletal flights for the past two weeks. About 50 per cent of the daily flights have been cancelled because the landing aids are not working so flights cannot operate in low visibility. But in other parts of the world people are flying zero visibility because they have landing aids at their airports. For three days Enugu flights were cancelled even at 2,000 meters visibility. There is no landing aids, no navigational equipment in some airports.
“An airline that has not flown to some airports for three days has incurred so much loss because you pay the pilots, you refund money to the passengers, you pay your suppliers. Some of the airports do not have runway lights. This is also what is happening to other industries so there is huge loss of manpower,” Meggison said.
But last Sunday, FAAN carried a test run on the runway lights at the Margret Ekpo International Airport, Calabar and a FAAN source told THISDAY that contracts were awarded for the installation of runway lights at the airports in Owerri, Yola, Enugu and Calabar and some of the projects are coming on stream and would soon be put in use.
