The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, has said the N23.1 billion earmarked for rehabilitation and repairs of airport facilities across the country may be inadequate.
Managing Director of FAAN, Mrs Olubunmi Kuku, said although the 22 airports under its supervision require significant upgrades, the amount budgeted may not be enough given their deficient conditions.
Speaking on The Morning Brief, a Channels TV programme, she identified the airports, their terminal areas, their land sides and air sides as some of those things that require improvements.
According to her, the aviation sector, especially the airports, were critical in nature and extremely capital intensive.
Her words: “When you refer to N23.1 billion or N23 billion, it may not actually scratch the surface if you look at where we are in terms of infrastructure development and upgrades. Yes, we do have some money earmarked for capital intensive projects this year, and maybe slightly more. What I do want to say is that the Federal Government through FAAN actually has 22 airports under our domain which we manage.
“Majority of those airports require that we maintain and upgrade critical infrastructure which includes the airport itself, the terminal area, the land side as well as the air side. As you know, a lot of our airports were built years back. The average lifespan of a typical runway is about 20 years, and we do have quite a number of them that have exceeded that time. We have been doing some palliative works; as such, a significant amount of the money that has been earmarked will go into full rehabilitation of the runways.
“We also have a number of our domestic terminals. By the way, we have the primary airport which is largely known as our international airports in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano and Enugu. In terms of our secondary airports, we are also looking at terminal infrastructure upgrades. That includes expansion of fingers where passengers are departing from and improving passenger experience.
“I know we have a lot of challenges with cooling systems, HVAC systems and simple things such as electricity. A lot of the funding will be going into that. Let’s not leave out the air side infrastructure. The runways, upgrading some of the airfield lighting systems as well. For some, there is a plan to go into CAD-3. In some instances, we have looked and prioritized where we can have CAD-2.”
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