The Director-General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, Captain Muhtar Usman says Nigeria has maintained a good record in air safety because of effective regulation, further adding that security has been beefed up at nation’s major airports.
Nigerian airlines were elated by the recent weather review done by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA). What prompted NCAA to do the review?
On the issue of the review of the weather minimum, normally and professionally we are guided by the published approaches for coming in to land at the airports and on those published approaches of landing procedure also come along with takeoff procedures also where weather minimums are specified on the landing, depending on the ground equipment available. Also take off depends on the available ground equipment. That is in terms of navigation and lighting.
However, for quite some time because of issues like mishaps that had happened before, it was decided that rather than the take off minimum, which is normally well below the landing minimum, a decision was taken, way back, that the takeoff and landing minimum would be merged together. And the idea at that time was, if you departed a field you should be able to come in and land in the case of emergency. Professionally as I mentioned, there was a provision whereby you can depart when the weather is below the landing minima for the airport provided you have what we call the departure alternate; that is an airport where you will be able to land within specified range from where you are taking off.
This also depends on the performance of your aircraft. So for quite some time we have situation where aircraft, for example, will be at an airport; it may already be there probably after landing and the weather moved down from the minimum landing so the aircraft technically speaking will have to remain on ground even if the destination airport is open for the aircraft to take off. We looked at all the equipment available and we now calculated and reviewed them in line with international practice, taking into consideration safety. With that an aircraft can take off as long as it is within that minimum take off, if the weather is below that of landing, provided where the departure alternate has been filed and it can make safe landing if there is any problem with the departure process.
That comes with documentation for the airline, the training for the crew to adhere strictly because whatever we are doing we have to take safety into consideration first; so training is essential part of safety and also the documentation so that people will understand the procedure and follow the procedure. That is one aspect of what we have done in the review of the landing and takeoff minimum. In taking advantage of that operators will be able to increase their operations.
The second aspect is the one that requires onboard equipment. It is satellite based system and you will need to have onboard equipment that will publish the procedures for using that satellite based landing system. Some of the airlines, mainly the foreign airlines have the equipment to use those approaches for successful landing. If airlines don’t have the equipment it will not be possible for them to use the equipment. All they need to do is to have alternative onboard equipment, train their crew and also document it properly for us to give them approval to make use of the equipment.
At least one of the major airlines in Nigeria (Arik Air) has that approval and they have been taking advantage of that where others are not able to get in they will go in and get out and that has improved their operation capacity.
According to the statement on the weather review, NCAA collaborated with the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA). This means that you audited the equipment they have before you did the review?
Talking about collaboration, we take into consideration all stakeholders. The agency that normally designs approach for landing and takeoff in Nigeria is the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency or whoever is providing that service. The NCAA approved the procedure after thoroughly reviewing it to make sure that it is in conformity with international standards and most of the time we work together to cut down on time for the deployment of reviews like this. So we work together with guidance from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and we were able to achieve this in a short time. During review we look at it and if there are things that need to be done, we tell you to go back. So we monitor it at every stage to make sure that we cut down on the timing for deployment.
It was not only NAMA that was involved; even the people providing the meteorological service, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) because the visibility comes from NIMET and before we completed the review, we also invited all the stakeholders, including the end users who are the airline operators to come and understand and if possible give us input. And, of course, whatever we do we do it in line with international best practices.
Are you going to give timeline to the airlines whose airplanes do not have the on-board equipment on the time they must have to equip their aircraft and train their pilots?
We will not give deadline to the airlines because such depends on the kind of operation the airline wants to do. If they decide not to operate during Harmattan; then we cannot force them to get equipment they will put onboard for Harmattan. So whatever operation they want to do what we are providing is opportunity for them to exploit and get the best; the optimum out of the system.
What we have now is ground based equipment for navigation, for approach and for landing are good and government has been reviewing, upgrading and installing new ones at various airports. So in addition, we have published a satellite based approach, which is performance based navigation approaches, which is the practice worldwide.
Is it possible for some states, which have airports to partner with NAMA to provide navigational aids in terms of funding with approval and supervision from NCAA?
We are always open to cooperation and collaboration. The main thing is about safety and security and, of course, very good facilitation. Yes, we will certainly welcome partnership between the states and airspace service providers, the airport operators also, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to ensure that the state owned airports reach and maintain international standards.
We will not allow any airport to continue to exist if it does not meet that given international standard. That is our own position. We would encourage the states to ensure that whatever they do they must make sure that the airport conforms to international security standard, international safety standard and every other thing required to efficiently facilitate passenger movement.
Some of the state owned airports may not have airfield lighting but the state governments would be insisting they are given approval by NCAA to open the airports for service?
There is what we call visual flight rule so we must not insist they must have airfield lighting if they don’t need to have light. The only thing is that when we are certifying them we will certify them with restriction based on the operation they can do.
It will be better for airports whether owned by the federal government, state or local government or privately owned to have all the facilities but, of course, facilities cost a lot of money. You know if you have to operate in the night you certainly need light and that will be at extra cost. That is why some airports want to operate daily flights. Some even want to operate one flight a day; some will like to operate three times a week. So such airports don’t need to have non-essential facilities but the basic facilities must be there to enhance safety, security and facilitation.
There have been allegations of people stealing on the runway, some bandits robbing private jets taxiing on the runway; what is your reaction to all these allegations?
Security challenges are always coming up, but we don’t always give out details about our security arrangement; because in doing that you may create insecurity. We have set up a committee to look into and investigate if indeed there was the possibility that theft happened. Along the line, there is suspicion that there was stealing but it has not been established where it happened. This is because stealing can happen either at the point of departure or probably at the point of arrival or somewhere else. We have not been able to establish that and just as people speculated, even though we don’t speculate. The aircraft is designed in a way that it is difficult, am not saying it is impossible, for somebody to have access of the aircraft and take something from inside and take whatever unless the person knows exactly what to do and everything about the aircraft and knows exactly what to pick and in the right time, so it is very, very tricky.
In the process of the investigation, all areas that need to be beefed up have been beefed up, but I cannot give details and it is a continuous process. We keep assessing the risks and the threat and we keep coming up with solutions. We have been working with the airport operator, FAAN and the control tower that controls the aircraft at the airport and other security agencies. But we cannot give the details of the security arrangement. The airlines too have their own security programmes. So it is a continuous process.
When are they going to install comprehensive CCTV system that can capture every part of the airport so that movements can be monitored everywhere at the airport? Are you talking with FAAN to make such possible?
A lot of things have been put in place but I don’t want to disclose specifics on those things that are there. We have both human and also electronic means of electricity and they are put in place and constantly being updated as well as area surveillance within the airport environment and scanners. These are constantly being updated as far as the airport area is concerned. There are scanners that include several kinds of equipment which I don’t want to mention.
Since you took over as the Director-General of NCAA there has not been any major incident in the industry. In reviewing 2017 what are the things that NCAA has been doing since you took over to ensure air safety in Nigeria?
We thank God for making last year and even the year before accident free. From my own side as managers of aviation what we try to do is to follow the international laid down standards and recommended practices enshrined in the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) annexes. I am not saying they were not there before; they were there but we just increased the surveillance, inspections, audits and also the resolution of safety concerns and where necessary we carry out enforcement actions and we will continue to do more of those of those things to ensure that those regulations that have been made mainly to take care of aviation safety and security are fully adhered to.
Those are some of the things that we did. If you look back in 2015 when we had the aviation security audit by ICAO, we moved up to over 96 percent in the area of aviation security. We are still trying to work to see if we can get 100 percent. That’s why I said that it is a continuous process. In the area of aviation safety, we were audited in 2016 and we got up to over 67 percent, which is above the global average, but we are still working to improve on the scores that we have.
In addition, last year we were able to increase our level for the implementation of state safety programme. When we came in as new management, the Nigerian dashboard on the International Civil Aviation Organisation, as far as state safety programme was concerned, was showing red, but as I am talking to you we have moved to level three, out of four, which is close to full implementation. If you go to ICAO dashboard for Nigeria, it is now showing green. Our efforts contributed to the improvement we have achieved in the last two years.
I am sure you know that recently we were audited by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). For now we still remain a Category 1 nation. All these go to show that the world now has confidence in our aviation system because there is no Nigerian aviation, aviation is global. We are working even harder than before to ensure we improve on all those scores.
There seemed to be improvement in aviation fuel supply because unlike in 2016, there was no fuel scarcity in December last year. In addition to this observation, what would you say government did to support the airlines last year?
One of them is the constant flow of aviation fuel, which is a major area; otherwise if we had it at the end of last year, it would have compounded the problem of the weather because on the issue of weather, we don’t have much control over it, but a lot of other things in terms of navigation, communication and surveillance were put in place, a lot of human capacity was put in place both locally and internationally because training is key to so many things. You can have equipment but if you don’t know how to use it, it means you don’t have the equipment.
I will like to stress that for the first time in all the audits that we did we did not request for any special funding. We did everything prudently without asking for any financial assistance, unlike the previous ones that were done. Some of the achievements, which I think I should mention because they are very, very important, include the certification of the airports. We did not have any airports certified before. This is the first time and we did two last year. It is a requirement by ICAO that international airports are to be certified. So out of the five designated international airports we have been able to do two now. Within the year we are hoping we would be able to complete another two. We have done Abuja and Lagos, Port Harcourt and Kano are on the way and of course Enugu will join. A lot of things were done last year. We had a lot of collaborations, especially with ICAO in the area of capacity building.
How do you evaluate the intervention of Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) in the aviation industry?
To me it is a positive development. The two airlines that have direct AMCON intervention are still flying today; in fact, by tomorrow (Friday, January 12), one of the airlines, Aero Contractors is going to release an aircraft that the C-check, which is a major check was carried out within their AMO, Aviation Maintenance Organisation approval given to them by the NCAA. This is a major achievement. It was only Nigeria Airways that was able to carry out that feat, but today the Nigeria Airways is no longer in existence. So you can see that it is a positive development. The airline is on the way to full recovery. This is because any airline that can do its maintenance locally up to C-check is a good development.
In Nigeria you are talking of saving foreign exchange and also creating more jobs and making people more useful. Maybe in future they may be able to earn foreign exchange for Nigeria, depending on the programme that they have.
I heard that a committee was set up to see how government can help Nigerian airlines improve their operations and also to look at the taxes and charges they pay for possible downward review. What is the situation of the committee now?
The acting President at that time set up a committee and I think it is better to allow the committee or the office of Presidency or the Ministry of Aviation to make statements on that. Some of us were members; we took part. All the stakeholders were invited. Some took part directly; some were invited to bring memoranda. It is something that is positive. It is the continuous engagement of all stakeholders. It is good because whichever regulation or policy you make, the people who are going to implement or be part of it should also have input. This is one of the positive things about this administration: to engage all stakeholders, to make sure everyone is carried along. To that end, I won’t say so much about the taxation because I believe the Ministry and the National Assembly and all stakeholders will have to contribute to that.
There is also a difference between tax and charge, taxes are statutory and charges are payment for services; whatever you use you must pay for it.
What is the feedback you are getting from the stakeholders and other Nigerians about the industry?
The feedback is very positive. People are really appreciating the implementation of executive order and ease of doing business. A lot of things have been done but things will take a little bit of time to reflect the change. Humans don’t like change, the feedback we are getting from the users of the facilities is very encouraging and very positive and we will do more to ensure that we do more.
From the processes that are going on, do you think we may have new airlines this year and when do you think the new terminals built at the five international airports will come on stream?
As for the issue of new airlines coming; we don’t float airlines. We set the requirements for airlines in line with international standards. Any airline or prospective operator that meets the standard we will certify that operator to operate in line with the type of certificate or license we might have given him. We have a number that are being processed but I cannot tell you because when they will start depends on the operators. Some start and latter abandon it, it really depends on the operator.
On the issue of the new terminals at the airports, approval has been given by the Federal Executive Council for the provision of impendent power for the airport and this will tell you that we are in the right direction. I cannot give you definite date when they be opened for operation but it is a positive development. When the terminals were planned some things were left out; some vital things such as tower. You cannot operate a terminal without tower. The sewage system needed to be taken into consideration but unfortunately it was not taken; the position of the terminal itself blocked the current control tower from seeing the whole of the airport at any given time. So there is need to relocate the control tower and also the relocation of the fire service. You have to also think of connecting the old and the new because it is a kind of continuity. This is not a standalone terminal because as a terminal it is part of the airport. Thank God the current administration has seen it so this is the first step towards actualising the commencement of the use of those terminals.
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