By Chinelo Obogo
At an aviation stakeholders meeting recently convened by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the Managing Director of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Umar Farouk, raised the issue of increasing navigational charges with Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), revealing that since 2008, these charges have remained at N11, 000 when the cost of flight ticket was N16, 000.
He argues in this interview, that since 2008, airlines have reviewed the cost of tickets several times, while the cost of the services rendered by NAMA has remained the same. He now says NAMA will have to review its charges to match the current economic situation and airlines have to accept the reality.
My appointment
Before my appointment, the morale of workers was low and service delivery was also a challenge. We had to find a way to have a common ground to address the two simultaneously. We had to look into workers welfare first because it is when we have a conducive environment that we would have higher productivity and get the best from workers. The first is about the workers and that was what we addressed.
I started my career with the Ministry of Labour and Productivity. I engaged them when I came in and I told one of the labour unions that I am also a comrade and will try as much as I can to address most of the issues. I am an insider, I know the challenges and the issues. I don’t have to wait for you to agitate before I address the issues. I began to address them one after the other to the extent that when I had a meeting with the unions, they said to me that there were no issues left and the reasons that have been clamouring for an insider to be appointed as MD of NAMA and I told them that we should not allow this agency to be destroyed, telling them that every staff must tighten their belt and that every one of us is also important. I told them that to whom much is given, much is expected of them to work round the clock to make sure that we grow this agency to the next level. We have a group of individuals that we have brought in as directors who have also assisted the system because all of them came from various backgrounds, they have excelled and we have insiders that would help to guide them to work as a team. That is the reason you have seen industrial harmony.
Navigation charges
There was a meeting of aviation stakeholders that was convened by the NCAA and at that meeting, I raised the issue with Airline Operators of Nigeria. Since 2008, navigation charges have been the same. At that time in 2008, it was N11, 000 when airfare was N16, 000. Airlines have been reviewing the cost of air ticket and today, the fare is N150, 000 per flight and we are still charging N11, 000. I think it is unfair and anytime you draw the attention of the airlines to it, they do not want us to review it. We are a cost recovery agency and we are making huge investment to make sure that safety is not compromised. It is high time the airlines accept reality. We are going to review our navigational charges to match the current economic situation. That is where we are. We have written to the Ministry and when it is time to do that, we will call for a stakeholders meeting so that we let them know and give them time to prepare and adjust to the new charges.
Infrastructure decay
Before now, most of the airlines avoided Nigerian airspace and they found it extremely difficult to communicate with air traffic controllers because the communication system was weak and over-saturated due to demand. As the industry is growing, you should expect more routes to open but there was no corresponding facility to match the emerging air traffic. So, what we did was to invest. We realised that there were so many openings, so we had to increase more stations to have signals that would cover the entire country. The entire communication had been re-designed to make sure that every blind spot is covered and where we are today, even if one system fails, the air traffic controller will not notice because there is an overlap and when one overlaps, the other one will assist you.
We have addressed the challenges we met but then, we are still having issues with electricity. That is why I declared an emergency on power. What we have decided to do is to deploy solar energy to some of these facilities so that they can function well. We have two sources of power. We have the primary one which is the national grid and we have the second one which is generators, and plants and the third one is solar. We deployed all these three because ICAO frowns at a situation where you have blackout even for seconds, so we make sure that there is uninterrupted power supply. The funding is insufficient but we are approaching it systematically to make sure that communication is good.
At the moment, we have significant improvement but there is still room for more. Recently, the minister approached the presidency for intervention and N40 billion was budgeted but we are yet to access the money. As soon as it is done, we will be able to tackle safety critical challenges that are before us as far as communication is concerned.
If you go to Navaids, we are also having obsolete facilities. For an average electronic system, the lifespan is about 10 years. Most of these electronics have been working for the past 15-20 years and we have commenced replacement of all these facilities. If not for funding, we would have finished replacing all of them. But for now, we have done almost 80% but the contractors are still working.
We have challenges in the area of surveillance. I will categorically tell you that since 2014, we have not had enough spare parts. The cost of spares is the issue and the obsolete state of the equipment. The FEC has approved the modernisation of the TRACON system and 15% of the fund has been paid and installation will commence as soon as other things are put in place. We are hopeful that at the end of it, at least the system will go back to optimal performance. That is as far as surveillance is concerned.
The other one is the power system and it is also part of the approval that we got. If they get this N40 billion presidential intervention, we will be able to conquer these challenges. Another one has to do with AIS automation. This programme has been ongoing for the past nine years or more. This boils down to funding but the Minister of Aviation has come to the rescue and as I speak to you, they have gone back to work because they have been financed and we are hopeful that in the third quarter of this year, we should be completing that project.
Shortage of air traffic controllers
We don’t have enough air traffic controllers. The challenge is still there. The mistake of the past administration was that there was no proper manpower auditing or proper planning. It takes time to train air traffic controllers and this has gone on for many years. It takes more than one year to train air traffic controllers, so you can imagine the gap and we can’t train hundreds of them. You can imagine the time it takes to train a handful of them. It takes time to get the number required. That is the challenge we are having. We are working toward making sure that that aspect is addressed.