•Say frequent blackouts major security threat
By Chinelo Obogo
Aviation experts and stakeholders have lampooned the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) over frequent incidents of power outages at Nigeria’s airports.
They descibed the trend as worrisome, dangerous, bizarre and unacceptable.
The backlash follows a viral video which showed the moment Lagos International Airport was plunged into darkness due to a power outage. The blackout, which was reported to have lasted for three minutes, happened on Friday night, February 2, 2024, causing panic among passengers who were forced to navigate through the terminal using the light from their mobile phones.
Reacting to the video in an official statement on Saturday, FAAN said that the outage occurred during the process of switching power sources after losing electricity from the national grid, but stakeholders in the sector have berated the Authority for not being proactive and ensuring that there is standby power supply in a situation where there is blackout. An expert, Olumide Ohunayo told Daily Sun that when natural or unnatural issues occur, outages are expected but when they happen, things should be put in place to mitigate its effect on passengers.
“Most outages bring total darkness and I would expect that when that happens, there should be standby bulbs that come on when everywhere goes dark to mitigate the effect. I am also not happy with the response from FAAN. Rather than be defensive, they should apologise for the inconvenience caused, because they have charged each passenger $100 and that is N140, 000 for using the airport. So, when there is an outage and you come out to start defending your actions, it is insulting. I don’t know how you can be confident to face the public who use your airport which is the most expensive in Africa. Apology should come before defense,” he said.
Friday’s incident was not the first time there would be power outage at Nigeria’s busiest airport. On April 1, 2023, there was blackout at the airport, which disrupted flight operations, causing hundreds of passengers to be stranded. In June 2022, passengers who flew from Abuja to Benin, were transported back to Abuja after the pilot was unable to land due to power outage at the airport.
Aviation security expert, John Ojikutu, told Daily Sun that when power outages happen at airports, the safety and security systems are disrupted. He also said there should be consequences for FAAN anytime there is blackout at any airport.
He said the Authority should be made to pay compensation to airlines and other services providers affected by the outages.
“When such happens, a lot of the safety and security systems are disrupted and the insiders threats will be very active in their bid to to invade the services operations thereby putting people’s lives in danger particularly the air travelers in flight, those in the process of travelling in the airport and the services providers.
“Let there be consequences for power outages on the services providers. Let the services providers pay ‘due compensation to those whose operations are disrupted by their services. Let the NCAA enforce Regulations on failures or negligence of the critical services providers especially on power supply. That one major reason why FAAN cannot remain the provider of the major services for all the operators. Concession all the non-aeronautical services at the airports and return the aeronautical services to the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA). Make FAAN a holding company on the concessions facilities; passengers and cargo terminals, car parks, toll gates, land areas power supply, while runways, taxiways and their associated lightings should go to NAMA.”
On what should be done to mitigate these, an aviation expert, Amos Akpan, told Daily Sun that most Nigerian airports would do better if they were able to build their own power plant which would make the facilities reliable and reduce cost of maintenance caused by epileptic power supplies. He said the airport can sell the extra power to her immediate environment for revenue.
He said: “The way power is produced, transmitted and distributed in Nigeria is not suitable to plan airports with. The use of generators as standby power to the airport is not cost effective. Design and build a power plant to fit your airport city for long term purposes. I know an airport that has gas pipelines pass through it which they should tap to build their IPP, but they using diesel generators. Very costly and unreliable input to production of services.”
An aircraft engineer and founder of Nigame Aircraft Consultancy, Femi Adeniji, who spoke to Daily Sun said: “I saw the embarrassing video sent to me on Feb. 3, 2024 by an associate who was there when it happened in an international airport if a country that has a known issue of power outage. Yes, the Minister of Aviation can only do so much, unfortunately it is not enough. The questions I have are the following are, where is the FAAN maintenance department? What happened to the electricity back up system? Where are the solar panels back up? What is the maintenance program for the airports in Nigeria? How often is the airports maintenance complied with? What is the emergency procedure in a situation like this?”