Nigeria Aviation Shines on World Stage

The aviation community is in a celebratory mood following confirmation that Nigeria had retained her Category-one status.

This has once again confirmed in unambiguous terms that the reforms in the aviation sector is not only receiving international recognition, but global acclamation.

Four years ago, the country was first awarded the much coveted status after an audit of the worthiness of her airspace by the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Recently when the FAA degraded Indian from category-one, doomsday critics of the aviation Masterplan rolled out their drums to predicted a similar fate for Nigeria.

However, industry experts were unperturbed, given the unprecedented dramatic transformation witnessed in the Nigerian Aviation industry.

Indeed, within the space of three years after this certification, the various parastatals under the Ministry of Aviation have attained significant milestones

The much celebrated remodelling of 22 airports across the country along with provision of safety and security infrastructure has stimulated economic activity with its attendant benefits of wealth and job creation.

For instance, the remodelled Murtala Mohammed Airport, Domestic Terminal one Lagos, popularly known as GAT has processed a total of 1007,823 passengers between January and August 2014.

Similarly a total number of 12,564 aircraft movements were recorded during the same period.

The construction of six state-of-the-art, international airport terminals in Lagos, Kano, Kaduna, Enugu, Bayelsa and Port Harcourt has already commenced after President Goodluck Jonathan led administration signed a bilateral agreement worth $4 billion for their constructions with the Chinese government last year July.

Nigerian airports are now fully compliant with ICAO standards for firefighting and rescue operations.

The firemen are well kitted to efficiently carry out their duties in securing and safeguarding the airport terminals and the lives of passengers and workers.

To beef up its counter-terrorism capacity, Government procured and deployed hi-tech, 3-in-1 (liquids, metals and explosive detection) screening equipment at all her airports.

These equipment have been fully installed and are functional at Lagos and Abuja while those for other airports are at different stages of completion.

A key component of the Infrastructure improvement programme for the various airports is the procurement and installation of more passenger handling equipment and support systems which include luggage screening and handling,  conveyor systems, air conditioning, standby power systems, baggage belt systems, lifts, escalators and travelators.

The new Air Traffic Management system under the TRACON project has made significant progress in putting in place radar and other navigational guidance systems that addressed the gaps in the country’s air navigational coverage.

The country now has functional, sophisticated navigational aids and well equipped control towers to its credit.

Last year, Nigerian Aviation sector was able to record a major milestone in search and rescue operations. In these situations, realtime radar playback provided by TRACON proved invaluable.

The redesigning of the airspace to be WGS-84 compliant is one of the steps taken by the country to meet ICAO’s standard and transit to performance Based Navigation (PBN)

Government has deployed a sophisticated flight tracking system, and an Automated Flight Information Reporting System (AFIRS) which was previously unavailable in the country.

Another pertinent milestone is the IOSA certification.

Safety in the airspace has improved with accurate weather prediction because of new Meteorological equipment.

International airlines now relay on our weather reports.

The country’s  Accident Investigation and Prevention Bureau, AIPB became the first in Africa to have its hangar and is now able to quickly download, extract, decode and analyse the aircraft accident data from the CVR and FDR (Black Boxes) thus saving time and money.

This capacity has sped up the investigation process and upgraded our aircraft accident investigation process.

Even the once neglected aviation training school at Zaria, Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, NCAT was not left out of the transformation agenda of this administration.

It has been upgraded and well-equipped in order to fulfill its mandate of producing world class skilled manpower for the country’s aviation industry.

Aside from the structural and management changes at the school, government has also purchased aircrafts, helicopters, Simulator, Auto pilot Training station and other training equipment for the institution.

These milestones have seen Nigerian Aviation leap forward in rapid bursts.

The economic benefits of retaining the aviation industry’s Category one status is numerous, including the positioning of Lagos as a hub airport in the region.

Furthermore, it will attract investors to tap into the corresponding and emerging business opportunities that will provide a value chain for the industry.

The sector will leverage on the retention of the CAT One status, to prepare for the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) safety audit of the industry which is coming up soon.

With the introduction of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) as a critical management tool, Osita Chidoka, The Aviation Minister has provided templates that challenges managers to set goals and continually improve performance.

The KPIs are the vital navigation instruments that will propel the aviation sector to take its rightful place as the centre piece of aviation in Africa.

Yakubu Dati writes from Lagos