Nigeria’s struggling domestic airlines are set to make huge financial losses for the six weeks that the Nnamdi Azikiwe International airport, Abuja will be closed to passenger traffic. The airport is scheduled to be closed from February to March.
Nnamdi Azikiwe International airport is Nigeria’s second busiest, after the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos and according to the National Association of Nigerian Travel Agencies (NANTA), all the seven domestic airlines operate 15 daily flights into Abuja, (one-way), while international airlines operate six daily flights into the city.
These include Lufthansa, British Airways, Air France KLM, Turkish Airline, Egypt Airline and Awa Airline. The Federal Government plans to start diverting these flights to Kaduna, a situation that may not be comfortable for many passengers flying that route.
Sources in the travel industry forecast that because of concerns around security , infrastructure at Kaduna airport, as well as the tedious four-hour connecting journey by road between Kaduna and Abuja, air traffic on the Abuja route will drop by 40 percent once the closure comes into effect. It is anticipated that passengers on the route will restrict their travels to “must do” mostly businesses , while the route will see a significant drop in tourism or holiday passengers.
Considering that each domestic flight operating into Abuja Airport carries an average of 120 passengers, each paying an average of N25,000 one-way, or N50,000 for a return ticket, domestic airlines risk losing about N6 billion, which is 40% of the N15 billion in revenues that could be made on the Abuja route during the period.
Analysts warn that this could impact negatively on the financial position of domestic airlines that are already struggling with rising costs and declining revenues as passenger traffic drops and aviation costs rise in the face of a weakened naira.
But the 26-year-old Abuja Airport, with a runway spanning 4,000 metres, was last repaired about five years ago, and in the last two years, airlines have complained that the bad portions of the runway have damaged their aircraft. This is why the Federal Airports Authority is moving to get the runway repaired.
Experts however say that rather than shut the airport down for six weeks, (42days), there are better models to adopt to ensure huge revenues are saved and airlines and passengers are comfortable during the process.
John Ojikutu, aviation expert and Secretary-General, Aviation Round-Table, suggests that the Minna Airport would be a better alternative. Ojikutu lists factors in favour of the Minna Airport as including its size, greater security and proximity to Abuja Airport. Minna is 161.4 kilometes from Abuja and a journey by road between both cities takes an estimated two hours and forty-one minutes, compared to two hours from Kaduna to Abuja.
Ojikutu purports that with the security challenges in the northern parts of the country, none of the American and European airlines would want to fly to Kaduna.
“I doubt if any international airline will take the risk of flying to Kaduna. They will rather land in Lagos and drop passengers there, a situation which may be discomforting to passengers,” he added.
“It is only ideal that the FAAN, knowing the traffic emanating from Abuja Airport, will not consider closing it down as an option. The best thing is for them to rather build a parallel runway and then come back to repair the old one,” John Osadolor, an expert in the industry told BusinessDay.
Osadolor says that airports with such traffic cannot be shut down simply because the runway needs to be repaired. He adds that work would still go down well if a parallel runway were constructed for airlines at the same airport before going on to repair the old one.
He also suggests that this could be an opportunity for distressed domestic airlines to take advantage of by liaising with foreign airlines to fly passengers carried by international airlines to Kaduna from Lagos, where they, the international airlines will not land.
Another operator who craved anonymity, raised questions as to whether the Kaduna Airport has been upgraded to meet international standard, in terms of its runways, terminal, navigational equipment and baggage tracking equipment, amongst others.
The operator said there are no adequate preparations made for passengers that will be dropped in Kaduna.
“There is a rail line linking Abuja and Kaduna. It is only ideal for the government to link this rail line to both airports, which can be done in three weeks. This will ensure seamless movement of passengers from Kaduna to Abuja, rather than endangering the lives of people who may only have the option to reach their destinations by road,” the operator added.
BusinessDay’s checks also show that John F. Kennedy in New York, United States, one of the busiest airports in the world, did its maintenance at night when the traffic is least and never completely shut down a runway during repairs that it had to carry out.
IFEOMA OKEKE
