High over-flier charges cut NAMA’s revenue base

The over-flier charges by the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) considered to be exorbitant has forced foreign airlines to avoid the country’s airspace as they considered alternative airspace cheaper than that of the country

This was disclosed by the Chief Executive of Ropeways Transport Limited, Capt. Dapo Olumide at a Colloquium with theme, “Airport Concession and Options For Airports Development in Nigeria”, put together by Publisher NTM, Simon Tumba.

His words, “Foreign airlines are avoiding the country’s airspace not because the airspace is not safe but because of his navigational charges. We have the traffic and capacity to generate more revenues.

Although, Olumide who was a one-time Managing Director of Aero Contractors did not disclose how much the agency is losing to the action of foreign airlines but not a few stated that the decision not to overfly the nation’s airspace could hurt the finances of the agency.

What NAMA charges airlines overflying Nigeria’s airspace is not made public, so the revenue loss could not be obtained by New Telegraph but in the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) charges over-flight fees to aircraft operators that fly its airspace but neither take off nor land in its airports.

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For en-route over flier, the FAA charges $38.44 per 100 nautical miles for Great Circle Distance (GCD), from point of entry to point of exit from U.S. airspace while Oceanic goes for $17.22 per 100 nautical miles.

NAMA is self-sustaining. It generates its own resource and funds most of its projects from internally generated revenue and only gets assistance from the Federal Government when the projects are beyond its capacity.

There were indications that the revenue of the agency had drastically dwindled due to loss of revenue from over-flier charges which form the bulk of the agency’s revenue.

But the agency is at the verge of rectifying some of the problems in areas of communication as it has invested several billions of naira on several infrastructure.

Managing Director of NAMA, Captain Fola Akinkuotu, admitted this much when he said what the agency needed would cost several billions of dollars.

He stated that NAMA was expanding in traffic and they hope to expand further both for domestic as well as international.

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“The equipment we need is in billions of dollars. Key aspect of NAMA’s job is communications, navigation and surveillance. Let us look at communications. Many years ago, I think the European Union gave us a satellite communication system. That was many years ago. We didn’t do anything about it. We did not expand it but traffic expanded, equipment degenerated”.

“So, what should we do? The question you need to ask is, do we need satellite communication? The answer is yes. The means of communication today that is considered reliable in terms of clarity is VHF but VHF has its limitations. It is restricted in a nutshell by what we call line of sight. Line of sight will have obstacles like buildings, mountains natural and man-made obstructions. For us, we were able to propagate them with VSAT and what we were given by European Union is not enough for our business today”.

Akinkuotu disclosed that the equipment does not come cheap, stressing that VSATs are the enabling infrastructure to bounce the radios off.

 

 

“We still need the ground facilities. We are in the process of extended VHF communication. That is a huge cost on itself. Then you look at navigation, someone asked me where the roads in the airways? I said to the person that the roads are there. Airways are ways on means between ground based or satellite based”.

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On surveillance, he reiterated that their plan was to have a revamp TRACON-Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria, noting that the equipment that they have in place now  is about ten years.

He further disclosed that everything that is electronics has a lifetime plus the fact that technology changes.

“We have not gotten the full benefit of the TRACON system. One of the things that we need to do is to upgrade not only the TRACON but the billing system.  With the billing system, we will know when you enter and when you exit. But right now, we are depending on you being honest to tell us when you enter and when you are going out”, he added.

Wole Shadare