Aviation expert reveals why Nigeria lost cargo hub status in Africa

President of Association of Foreign Airlines and Representatives of Nigeria (AFARN), Mr. Kingsley Nwokoma has identified lack of proper planning, inadequate apron facility and lack of support from the airport Authority as remote causes for Nigeria’s loss of its leading air cargo hub status in the West African sun-region.

Speaking to journalists yesterday at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA), Mr Nwokoma said that, such situation has been a source of worry for AFARN which had, over the years mooted the idea of projects like the cargo village or cargo terminal to boost the cargo flow into and out of the country.

He therefore, appealed to President Mohammadu Buhari; despite whichever project they had in mind, to consider the issue of expanding the airports’ tarmac and increasing of the parking bays at the different airports so as to facilitate free flow of cargoes without hitches.

Explaining the challenges the industry has been facing over the years, Nwokoma said “We the AFARN have a lot of projects like the cargo village or cargo terminal. We have talked about that over the years and we hope that, within this 4 years of President Buhari, such projects will be included in whatever projects that they have in mind.

“When the tarmac and parking bays were built, we were not futuristic because we could have looked at a 10-20-year plan. But in the 60s, when this was built, it was just built with parking bays, to just contain averagely 4 to 5 aircraft, depending on the type of aircraft but now things have changed.

Those days you have the 707s and the 727s, and those are small-body aircraft, but generational change has brought in aircraft like 747s, Dash 800; we have the 777 cargo aircraft and all that.

“Once two aircraft are parked in that tarmac, we don’t have space for additional aircraft to park. So what is usually done is for them to ask the aircraft to go to the passenger terminal which is also time consuming and also causes more fuel consumption.

Network punctuality is also disrupted because if I have an aircraft coming to Lagos and it is supposed to be in Accra or Nairobi at a particular time, and it moves from one place to the other, there is always time wastage”, he added.

Emphasisng that the expansion of the apron is very vital, the AFARN President implored the government to look into the matter urgently as they have had series of incidents due to parking in the apron.

“The expansion of the apron is very vital. We implore the government to look into that. We have had some incidents due to parking in the apron in the past and we all know how expensive it was when there is even a little scratch on the aircraft. In order to avoid all these, we should look at how to put them in the budget.”

Nwokoma lamented that they have also had so many assurances from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) that they would improve the system, but unfortunately, the aviation agency has not been able to fulfill its promises.

“We have had so many assurances from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) but we don’t see them walk that talk”, Nwokoma said.