It has become the vogue for many state governments to embark on the establishment of airports. Many of the governors who go into these projects say that it is opening up their states for investment. Although it has been said at many aviation fora that building airport facilities does not promote grassroots development; rather, the high capital intensive projects usually gulp the money that should go for priority projects such as health centres, schools, connecting rural communities through road rehabilitation and providing water for communities that do not have access to that essential resource.
This view has been given strength by the President of Aviation Safety Round Table Initiative (ASRTI), Dr. Gabriel Olowo who questioned the rush for establishment of more airports by state governments, saying that most of the existing aerodromes are not commercially viable.
Olowo rather, advised that efforts should be geared towards developing hubs at the major airports in the country, especially at Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos with so many Terminals in order to attract more traffic and airlines.
He observed that most of the airports apart from the ones in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt are not commercially viable, noting that the facilities that would make the existing airports a hub are still lacking in most of the country’s airports and mentioned the absence of concourse light train network to connect Domestic Terminals and International Terminals and vice versa both in Lagos, Abuja ,Portharcourt and Kano and the installation of modern technology facilities like self- checking service kiosk, etc, are also lacking.
“There exists too many toll gate check-points rather than the many agencies to share data and file a single watch-list with security. This is a major disincentive for hub development. Passenger facilitation is made more cumbersome rather than the global effort at making it seamless.”
For cargo airports, Olowo lamented that the intra and inter state road linkages to the airports are in deplorable states and wondered how such airports would be useful to farmers and other users to deliver their products .
Olowo emphasised that airports are not only expensive to build because of the many facility linkages but also expensive to maintain. He said that there must be short and long term enforceable plan by succceeding governments before embarking on airport development if government were to be a continuum, observing a trend of one governor quiting and another abandoning the project such as revealed during the launch of Ogun state agro airport runway.
He said, “For Lagos Airport, for instance, to become a hub, first class and world-class airport transfer connection facility is necessary. Concourse light train should be built to connect the terminals rather than allowing transit and or tranfer passengers to check out of the customs, burst into the precarios mammoth crowed in rain and shine with their baggage in order to pick a taxi to the next connecting terminal . This is very absurd and a shame at MMA (Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos) in 45years of its existence since 1978. Transit /transfer passengers dread Lagos Airport ,especially in the evenings. Regarding cargo airports, the roads to take the products to the airports are either not available or in bad shape with high propensity for trucks to tumble and perishable goods destroyed. Explosive goods will also explode. Day old chicken and eggs massively destroyed.
“States should put their heads together for the establishment of safe, functional and durable interstate road linkages first rather than conceiving the idea of a new agro Aerodrome. The airport in the western region of Ibadan and others like that are still operating below capacity . The geographical neighbouring States should cooperate on road & rail linkages and upgrade the airport to a world class standard for the service of Ogun, Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti,etc rather than individual state effort at establishing own airport. Its Bad economics if airports are to deliver economic of scale.
“Airports maintainance are not cheap and must be done routinely. All we need is to make an effort at turning the existing ones ( after proper enhancement) into hubs. There must be deliberate effort to develop hubs and not by building non functional airport silos all over the states, overstretching the already stressed treasury.”, he added.
On the plan by Abia and Edo State governments to build airports in their states, Olowo described it as good politics but bad economics.
“What is the status of once glorious Benin Airport. Why not revisit the old ruins ? he asked.
He wondered if the State governments had short term and long term development plans for their states, stressing that each state should necessarily have 5-10 year development plan for their states, which must be strictly honoured by subsequent leadership.
“Government should priortise the need of the people ranging from basics of life like food, shelter, heath, education etc. Airport construction goes belond acquiring hectares of land without perimeter fencing , compromising safety of operations ab initio , construct substandard runways that will be washed away in one or two raining seasons. It is a highly capital intensive project that should be embarked upon after a robust bankable projection. No thanks to the many abandoned airport projects by the states that are begging for funding, a case study of the State of Osun.
“An airline during one of the ART breakfast meetings, revealed that it had to install a transformer at an export terminal in order to supply power for airport lighting facilities so as to deliver night flight operations to that airport. The transformer was even said to be burgled after sometime by miscreants. This is expectedly a service that should be provided by the airport company but could not due to lack of funds.”.
