NAMA frets over airlines’ status in $24m landing facility

• Only Arik certified to use the PBN system

The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) is at a loss as to how domestic airlines can take advantage of the on-going installation of the over $24 million Category 3 Instrument Landing System (ILS) in Lagos and Abuja airports.

The average cost of each of the equipment ranges between $4 million and $5 million and the airspace agency is already installing two for Lagos and Abuja for the first phase, while Sokoto, Port-Harcourt, Kano and Maiduguri will follow suit.

These airports are carefully chosen because of the prevalence of bad weather in most parts of northern Nigeria during harmattan season.

The worry stems from the fact that only Arik Air has on-board equipment in its relatively newer airplanes to match on ground facilities for aircraft to land in zero visibility or during harmattan, which bites harder between December and February every year.

During the period, airlines lose money because aircraft are kept on ground, flights cancelled, thereby causing chaos at several airports across the country.

Managing Director of NAMA, Capt. Fola Akinkuotu, told Woleshadarenews in Lagos that installation of the facilities had commenced for Lagos and Abuja, adding that after fixing the equipment, they would go into Port-Harcourt and Kano.

The next phase, he said, would be for Sokoto, Maiduguri, saying it will be based on necessity.

“If harmattan will affect Sokoto than it would for Ibadan, it makes sense for Sokoto rather than in Ibadan,” he said.

He lamented that the high safety tool would only benefit foreign airlines more because they already operate with the equipment on-board while Nigerian carriers would need to upgrade their airplanes to take advantage of it.

His words: “So, FAAN needs to know that they have to provide certain things but the operators have to have the equipment onboard their aircraft. In the case of Performance Based Navigation (PBN), only Arik has been certified to be able to use the PBN. We have PBN approaches for 26 airports. Who are we then developing this infrastructure for? It means we are doing them for international carriers.

“Our airlines need to take advantage of it including ILS Category 3. On the operators’ side, it will require pilot training, on-board equipment and recurrent training at every six months to guarantee that the pilots are qualified.”

“Government and NAMA putting ILS Cat 3 in Abuja, Lagos, Sokoto, Port-Harcourt and other places will also demand that other things associated with Cat 3 conditions have to be met. FAAN has to do what they need to do, so also the operators. The operators must have those things, must meet their own requirements to benefit from it,” he added.

During harmattan in Nigeria, the weather becomes hazy and visibility is bad. So, with this equipment that NAMA has acquired, aircraft can land at any time at the airports, but the equipment needs stable electricity supply. It does not work where there is unstable power.

Before now, the situation had made flying in Nigerian airspace difficult during the harmattan, resulting in flight cancellations.

Most international and local flights have had to be diverted to neighbouring countries any time there is harmattan haze because of lack of facilities to guide them with precision during landing. The issue of harmattan haze is a yearly seasonal occurrence as Nigeria has mainly rainy (thunderstorms) and dry seasons (harmattan).

While the problem lasted, no airline could fly and passengers were delayed with colossal loss of revenue to the operators.

Domestic airlines in Nigeria particularly dread harmattan season because of its attendant dusty and hazy weather, which leads to multiple flight cancellations due to low visibility.

The weather minima at most airports in the country penultimate year was between 600 metres for Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, and Nnamidi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja and 800 metres for Calabar, Owerri, Benin City and other airports.