Dunoma: We have Reviewed Our Procedures to Stop Stowaways

There has always been a plan to have a second runway at the Abuja airport and so far the present administration indicated interest to build it. One, what is the level of preparation? Two, if you were to locate a second runway where do you intend to put it in Abuja airport?

Well, the second runway is very important; it is key to our operations. The present runway has deteriorated so much such that we need to do a major work on it to make it better. So the second runway will be necessary. You cannot afford to close Abuja airport because it is the seat of government and it is important to our economy. A committee was setup last year between FAAN and Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) and we have come out with a scope of what we want in terms of the facilities that should be included in the second runway design.

That scope have been developed, we have advertised also both in the nationally and internationally for consultant that will develop that scope into working drawings and bill of quantities so that we can both tender them. But we are yet to select the consultation because the process of procuring a consulting firm is what we are doing. Already, preliminary survey had been carried out in Abuja by our in-house engineers; we have a fair idea of the location of the second runway and the facilities that we need to provide there. Because we need to provide link taxiways, taxiways, aprons and some other things that will make both the new and the existing facility work together as an airport.

These locations have been identified, it is part of the brief that we are going to give the consultant; that this is the area that we want the second runway to be located and these are the facilities we want to be included in this project and the consultant will go ahead to do a detailed survey, detailed design and a detailed bill of quantity will come out with which government can go to tender. So we have an approximate location but of course during the design the tendency is that the consultant will make some adjustment in order to make sure that he optimises the place in terms of optimal cost because if you change the location then it will also affect the cost. So he will choose the best place to have best cost for government work.

Talking about marrying the old one to the new one, a lot of people in the industry said that having a second runway in Lagos wasn’t an outright advantage because you cannot use one independent of the other because of their closeness and positioning to each other. Looking at the land space and looking at the topography in Abuja, do you think you can locate the new runway in a way that the second runway can function independent of the other?

It is possible to do that, although the landscape is making it a little difficult, this is the task that the consultant will have to resolve. Normally, we would tell the consultant that we would want to have two runways parallel like the one in Lagos so that we can have landing and take-off simultaneously in both runways. But I know that there are issues with the terrain but the consultant will resolve that for us.

We saw the advance level of work at the new terminals that are being built, but there are projections that in the next five years you may be building other new terminals for international services at those airports due to projected upsurge of passenger traffic?

No. I don’t think so the capacities are good enough because what we have done in these new terminals is that we do not provide for offices, we just provided strictly passenger facilitation facilities. If you look at Murtala Mohammed Airport, Lagos and Abuja airport there are so many offices in the terminals; so, a large percentage of the space within the building has been taken up by offices and operational space. In these new terminals it is not like that; all that we have is passenger processing facilities and shops, commercial offerings, so a lot of passengers can be processed through that. We are also trying to link them with the existing terminals so that they can work together.
We are sure that it will take us quite some time depending on passenger growth, but it will take quite some time to start thinking of another terminal or expansion. These new terminals are strictly for passenger processing and commercial offerings, no offices.

What is the fate of these other airports that work is on going? Some of them have been in deplorable state?

You know we are working on so many terminals. Some of them we almost demolished all of it and came up with a new design. Some of them as you are aware, have been completed and are in use. If you go to Kano, Benin, Owerri, all these have been commissioned. But those that are not commissioned we are looking at the resources that we have to make sure that they are completed. Just recently we paid some contractors and we are sure that they will come back to site and resume work and we will see activities on site.

Airlines always complain that they could have been operating late into the night in some airports if there were runway lighting, is there anything you are doing to provide lighting at the runways of more airports?

Most of our airports have runway lighting. We have just installed solar runway lighting to six or seven airports in Yola, Benin, Port Harcourt, Maiduguri, and Kano. So most of these airports that require night operations have these facilities but what we do in order not to incur too much cost for FAAN, is to switch off power when there are no operations. We reduce the hour of operation to 18 hours, so immediately after the last flight in the evening we close the airport. We will not open it until there is emergency. Closure does not mean that everybody closes and goes home, no, closure means that you have minimum lighting, few number of people at the airport; so that in the case of emergency operations we can just put everything on.

If public supply of power continues to be steady, like some of the challenges you mentioned now like saving cost, would it be necessary to be closing the airport?

Of course, with the public power supply we still pay. So all you need to do is to conserve energy, they will also need the power somewhere; power is not just consumed by FAAN. If we are not using it they can divert it and send it to some other places that it is needed. There is no point for us when we know that there is no flight plan to the airport, then we put on the airfield lighting and everything and start burning energy for no operations. We have our generators and everything but just to make sure that we don’t waste energy we now shut down. And then if there is a request that they need to use this airport at these hours we will put them on.

Airport certification. What is the arrangement you are making with the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA)?

NCAA has given us the list of the open gaps that we need to close; we are working on those closures. In fact, committees have been setup in the two airports: Abuja and Lagos. We have assigned responsibilities to individual offices and departments in order to close these gaps. We have also given them timeline, although that will depend on resources that we are able to give them. But we are working together with NCAA, in fact they are in the committee, so that whatever we are doing in order to close those identified gaps, we work together with them so that they see how and what procedures we are using in order to close those gaps.

Do you think Lagos can ever have a very efficient perimeter fencing looking at the way people encroach FAAN’s territory; Is there any measure you have taken or intend to take to curtail their entry to your land?

Lagos has a very efficient fence now because we have two types of fence around the airport. We have what we call the boundary fence and it is the boundary fence that we have issues with. Because a lot of land encroachers have come and built houses very close to our fence and some of them in fact extended our perimeter fence to be part of their fence which is not allowed. But we have made some progress in that area, we went to court with the people that are living around Shasha and we won the case. So we are just at the verge of implementing the court decision, they are wrong and the court rules in our favour, so we are going to take action. This is a signal to other people in other locations that are encroaching on our land that one-day the same thing will happen to them.
So I am warning people that are living very close to the airport to desist from encroaching on airport land. We are working close to the Lagos government; they are going to help us to make sure that all those that are within our safety zones are removed from that place. And the Lagos state government is going to help us in getting that done. Now we have the second type of fence, which is the operational fence, that one is intact. It covers the aircraft maneuvering area, so that nobody gets access into that area except staff that have something to do there and is well equipped with a two-way radio communication other gadgets.

And these staffs are normally either maintenance or inspectors or people that are authorised to go into that operational area or security. These are the only thing people that are within the operational area and they have a reason to be there. Before they get there, there are procedures also for them to get there. They need to take permission from the air traffic controller, they need to listen and watch the two way radio between the tower and vehicles or persons, they need to have their vehicle equipped with apron pass, airside pass, amber light so that if it is in the night the beacon will revolve and they will be seen and also in the day. Within the operational fence everything is intact as required by NCAA.

Do you think that measure will curb or eliminate stowaway incidents?

Stowaway is not within the operational area; it is when you bring the aircraft to their parking bay that you have cases of stowaway. They don’t park at the aircraft maneuvering area because they are always moving. From the stories of the stowaway we have had so far, it is when they park at the hanger that you have these kinds of issues. Even the recent incidences that we have, we have reviewed our procedures and we have improved on it. That is why now, for quite some time we have not had any cases of stowaway.

I find out that some other security operatives at the airport are not submitting themselves to Aviation Security (AVSEC) directives, what are you doing to ensure they dovetailed to AVSEC security apparatus?

I don’t believe in what you are saying because every security agent that is at the airport has a specialized responsibility. AVSEC provides general security, Customs have their own responsibility, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), State Security Service (SSS), all of them have specialised responsibility and everybody should be on top of what they are doing in terms of their specialised responsibility at the airport.

But FAAN provides the general security, so FAAN does the entire passenger processing. Now if any arrest is made depending on the kind of offence the person has committed you normally take it to the specialised security agency that is at the airport. And this is working perfectly, I am not saying that we don’t have areas of dispute but these areas of dispute are things they resolve. Of course, if you bring people like that to work together the tendency is that there is a lot of overlapping in responsibilities and then there are little conflicts here and there.

But the security committee in each airport is a forum for them to resolve these issues. I have not heard any issue that has come to me that is irresolvable, they have always resolved their issues and they are working together.

People outside believe that with the size of FAAN the agency should be making more than double of what it is making now. What is your revenue drive now and is there any measure to curtail cash movement for things to run on computer system without people handling cash?

Of course, we have reduced cash handling drastically, I remember some years back everything we did was collected by cash but all these are not there now except of course the toll gate which is a bit difficult for us. But any other revenue is paid through the banks. Now we have International Air Transport Association (IATA), for example, collecting all the landing and parking charges and the passengers service charge on our behalf. And every two weeks this money is transferred to FAAN account.

Because IATA is clearing house for all the airlines, because they have a system already in place where travel agents sell tickets on their behalf and these travel agents pay the money to IATA. So it is easy for them to collect our money. Of course, IATA takes this money at the end of the day and shares it, part of the money is ours, that is the passengers service charge and landing and parking. So this is automatically deducted on that platform and it is sent straight to FAAN account. Now with the Treasury Single Account (TSA) it goes straight to the Central Bank, so we access it from there to pay our salaries and do other things.

Our concessionaires also, we bill them, they pay straight to our account at the Central Bank before now it was commercial bank, but with TSA it goes straight to the Central Bank. Nobody handles any cash any more, normally as we send the bill you will see at the bottom of the bill the account number, so you pay it straight to that account. So we don t handle cash, the only area that still deals with cash is the tollgate. At the tollgate we are trying to improve on that, some people are doing a study for us as soon as that study is completed we believe that it is something that will be workable for us. We will implement it and even at the tollgate we will not have cash.

We have started to some extent even at the toll gate we have cards and these cards have a price and this price will cover you for certain period of time. Just like what you do with your Internet, you load something on the card, you use it and at the end of the month you need to recharge it. We have started something like that but there are people that come once in a while, but for regular airport users that is working for them. But the people that come once in a while, we need to find a way of either using their credit card but we are conducting a study and it is not yet finalised.

In the area of concession, is there any new idea of expansion of revenue sources and to bring more of the private sector to invest in the airport?

Yes we have, for example at the Murtala Muhammed Airport we brought in an investor for the construction of car park, we have agreed that on the completion of the car park there is going to be a sharing formula on the revenue which will be signed, this will reduce the burden on government from investing on such projects. If it is properly and transparently done, it will be beneficial to the user, the airport authority and the federal government at large. So we are looking in that direction in developing some infrastructure around the airports, especially those infrastructure that are high revenue yielding.

We are also looking into the car park at Abuja, we are building a high rise that will be managed by the concessionaire and then we share the revenue with the concessionaire for a period of time until they recover their money. And then they transfer the facility to us. So we are trying to encourage that in so many airports. We have also tasked our airport managers that each airport has its own peculiarities in terms of location and the culture of the people and what we think the investors might be interested in.

So we have asked them to submit proposals if they get to know any investor that is interested in doing anything at the airport. We have quite a number of persons that have been identified for certain projects, once we get the right investor we will go ahead and work until we have an understanding and implement it and then it will be beneficial to FAAN and the investor.

What is your plan to boost your revenue from advertising because there is great revenue potential there?

You know initially we had problems with advertising companies that were engaged by FAAN to do business at the airport. There were some disputes some years back and we went to court and we couldn’t resolve that issue in the court. So we decided it is best we withdraw from the court and discuss on certain terms so that we can settle out of court to make it faster. During the period, we lost about three years revenue which is not good for us and it is not good for the advertising agencies too so they accepted. It appeared we were all losing and we had to find a middle ground whereby it will be a win-win situation for us.

We agreed on the debt they owed, we agreed we restructure the payment and they have started business. The thing is that we want to maintain standards, we don’t want to ask somebody to go and do a different advert in Kano and ask somebody to do something different in Lagos. Airport Authority and the aviation industry in general is an industry that has a lot of standards to follow. So in order to make sure that these standards are adhered to, we restricted ourselves to working with two companies-Promoworld and Afromedia so that we can get quality adverts and so that we don’t under price the adverts around the airports. Because if you bring too many people our fear is that some people might under price and then the price will fall and at the end of the day we might not be able to realise what we are suppose to realise. But with that out of court settlement and these people are just starting, Promoworld and Afromedia. We have started seeing streams of revenue coming in and it is our belief that it will continue to improve.

Why do you designate some airports as viable and others unviable?

Some airports might not be generating enough revenue to pay for the entire requirements. Those are the airports that are termed unviable but it is our belief with time these airports will be viable. But what we need to do is to look at these airports and develop them strategically based on what you want them to be in future. We are thinking along that line, lets’ develop some airports as maintenance centers for example so that in those airports you can build hangars and technical facilities that will support the hangars. So such airports can be developed in those airports and that will bring business to those airports. While some airports are strictly passengers and cargo; some airports can be developed along the line of agricultural export. If you do that then that airport becomes viable. So we are talking to government and also planning to see that airports are followed based on what they are suppose to do in the nearest future so that the facilities you put in that airport depends on what you want the airport to be.

Indications show you are partnering with Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to wipe out corruption in the agency. As you collaborate with the organization, do you already have some of your own officers who are also monitoring activities of the workers?

Yes, we have a team headed by our General Manager, Administration and we have a team also at the airport, and this team goes out always to look out for bad practices and ICPC also has covert and overt team going round to look at what is happening and they can make on the spot arrest. Even that alone sends a signal to all the workers at the airport that somebody is watching over your shoulder on what you are doing. So this has gone a long way in addressing some of the bad practices.

I know that your purview certainly does not go beyond FAAN, for example, the security men at the door from other security organisations, do you have any kind of control over them?

We have some control because they work in airport security committee, and the airport security committee is headed by the airport manager. So they work together through that committee to do a lot of things in terms of watching their procedures, what they need to do, what they need to put in place in order to improve new measures or what measure they need to review. They are not under us but we collaborate a lot through that committee and we have airport facilitation for the team. So it is through that committee which is headed by the airport manager that we get a lot of their cooperation in order to make sure that what we deliver what we are supposed to deliver at the airport.

When the risk assessment is over what do you hope to achieve wit that pilot study of both Lagos and Abuja?

They will come up with recommendations definitely after their assessment, so this recommendations are the things we are going to implement in order to improve the services at the airports. Like I mentioned, through the committees these recommendations are going to be tabled before the committee, and they can say okay this is what we observed. If it has to do with aviation security, aviation security will take note and make corrections. If it has to do with Customs, Immigration, they will take note and make corrections. So that shows you the level of corporation that we have with all the security agencies at the airport.

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