In a few days the international Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), will be visiting Nigeria airports for the Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP).
This programme is for auditing the nation’s airports and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), have expressed readiness and preparedness for the audit programme.
The authority said, “We are on top of our duties, leaving nothing to chance in resolving deficiencies identified through the ICAO USOAP activities.”
However, industry stakeholders have expressed concerns over Nigeria’s preparedness. Speaking exclusively to me, the former military commandant of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, Grp Capt. John Ojikutu (rtd), wondered how Nigeria will be certified after the incursion, case of stowaways, stealing of runway lightning and shortage of technical personnel in key aviation agencies.
“I have concerns about the performance of Nigeria in this year’s ICAO audit. The issue of airport incursions has been with us for many years and ICAO has it in its 2006, 2008, 2012 reports, etc including reports that we need security fences which are up to date, we have failed to implement.
“I have been wondering how in spite of the incessant incursions, there are stowaway, and now stealing of the runways lightning, the airports would have to be certified by the NCAA.”
Ojikutu said these security breaches were already in the ICAO checklists and wondered how NCAA would defend itself.
He said the implications of poor performance in ICAO’s audit are that the category of the airports will be downgraded and this will be passed on to International Air Transport Association (IATA) for its members and this could cause an increase in their insurance premiums and therefore further increases in airfares.
“There is very little to do now; NCAA needs to audit itself. It requires skilled manpower in sufficient numbers which for many years is lacking in every department of the authority.
On his part, a member of the Aviation Round Table Initiative (ARTI), Olumide Ohunayo, said said ICAO may identify these gaps and give NCAA some time to fix them.
He, however, bemoaned the recent safety issues across airports, some of which include aviation fuel contamination, downgrading of airport fire category in Port Harcourt airport and approach lighting capability among others.
Ohunayo said while the Port Harcourt airport downgrade impacted the international airlines that they had to divert flights, for other incidences, precautions were taken thereafter.
“Max Air aircraft were grounded for contaminated fuel and for the runway light, an alternate runway was made available. The impact of these will be directly on the cost of aircraft insurance and the cost of rentals for airlines and operators.
“It will also affect our reliability and credibility to sustain critical aviation safety infrastructure. We have expended so much on safety and security, only to have some of these issues.
“What I see is that ICAO will look at the gaps and give us some period to fix those gaps and if we can fix those gaps,” he said.