By Nkem Osuagwu
During a recent interview with journalists in Lagos, the Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigerian (FAAN), Engr. Saleh Dunoma highlighted the authority’s efforts and aspirations in the provision of requisite security for aircraft and passengers at the nation’s airports. He also addressed other pertinent aviation sector issues including the place of technology at the airports. Enjoy it:
FAAN will be hosting an Airport Council International conference in Lagos soon, can you tell us what this is about and especially its benefit to the Nigerian Aviation industry?
This is important to us because it will be done by experts in the industry. It wouldn’t be carried out by experts within FAAN but Airports Council International (ACI) and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) recommended experts from various countries will come as a group to do the assessment.
Of course, our people will follow-up immediately to make sure they get it right after the report is submitted and come up with corrective action plan. This plan is a major tool; they audit us. After the completion and correction, they will come back and re-assess us whether we have done the right thing or not. These are programmes that are all designed to improve civil aviation. The ACI conference is in Nigeria and a lot of experts are coming and I urge you to come and attend to give us a good coverage, to project our country in good light.
What is FAAN doing to ensure that there is safety and security of aircrafts in the airside and also to stop the incidents of poaching from aircrafts?
There are certain areas that are restricted. You know that we have access control. We have the group of people that come to the airport and other people that are providing the service in the air. We have quite a number of people that are accessing the airport. We must have a robust access control system. Apart from that, since it is a public place, there is a limit to what we can do in order to stop people getting through that place. We have a lot of measures in place. One of them is that the airport should be fenced quickly. There must be perimeter patrol; there must be technology to help us in the surveillance at the airports.
To some extent, we have some of these facilities at all the airports. Of course, security challenges are always coming up in different forms. When you address this, the challenge will come back again in another form. We have to improve on our technology.
As we speak, there are two contracts for Abuja airport to make sure that we cover all the restricted areas with CCTV. This project is ongoing. In Lagos, it is about 80 per cent completed. In Abuja, it is about 75 per cent completed. We will soon commission them. All movements across and around the areas will be seen clearly. This is going to help us a lot. We are buying another technology; it is a mobile system that has cameras that can see up to seven kilometres. Even in the night, it has all the cameras that will watch all the movements of the sensitive areas of the airports; the apron, runway and then the accesses will be covered by the cameras.
By the time we have all these technology in place and improve on the perimeter road and repair some of the broken fences, security will be water tight up to that level that nobody will have access to the areas because we will be watching the entire perimeter fences and the entire sensitive areas of the airport. With the mobile surveillance system, you can see what is happening at the airports.
It is quite a distance from the car park to the terminal building. Is there any plan by FAAN to provide a shuttle bus to lessen the stress the drivellers go through before accessing the terminal building at the Lagos airport?
It is because we are used to short distances. If you travelled out of the country, from the security checks to the gate in most airports, they will tell you that it is either 15 minutes or 20 minutes walk. I am not sure that the distance from the car park to the terminal is up to five minute walk. What we did was to improve the ambience. While the passengers are walking, they are walking under a shed because there is a separation.
The car park is going to be linked to the new and old terminals. You don’t have to come out. The new and old terminal buildings are all under a roof. But for now, you have to come out. By the time the new terminal building is commissioned, a lot of these problems will be resolved. The airports keep growing. We have new facilities, infrastructure. In Lagos, we are building a new terminal and extending the apron. As long as we keep developing the airports, we have to keep also improving on CCTV coverage. We are working on CCTV coverage in all the international airports with additional infrastructure. It is a continuous thing and not only that, priorities might also change from operations and security departments. They may come up with option and say we consider this place and say let us put a camera there.
In a nutshell, this is a continuous thing to improve on security by way of improving on technology.
There have been reports of flooding on the runways are there plans to bring an end to this as we are about to enter the rainy season?
I don’t think we have flood on our runways. One of the critical things for the design of runways is the drainage system. We drain the runways in two directions. Runways are either 50 or 60 meters wide. The centre is slightly high so that water does not stay on the runway at any point in time and in most of the airports, they are designed for proper drainage. We have longitudinal drain that takes water that is coming from the runway straight and out of the airport. We don’t have issues of runway flooding. Normally, if it is raining heavily, the controllers and airlines look at that and avoid landing or taking off until after the rain. No water percolates on the runway for any moment at any time because our runways are designed in such a way it cannot be flooded. We were there at Enugu airport with Minister of State for Aviation and met with His Excellency, the Governor of Enugu State on issues pertaining to the airport and runway.
Of course, the market is there. You know government had a problem of expanding and extending the runway. This programme started sometimes in 2011 and runway was successfully extended and expanded, but we could not finish the approaches of both ends because of land issues. The Governor gave directive that all development and encroaches should stop. He gave a directive also that Enugu State radio has a mast there to prepare. We are working on having airfield lightings and other facilities to make Enugu airport a 24 hour airport.
Can you elaborate on other partnerships FAAN had with other states in the country?
We have partnership with several state governments on airports; about six or seven of them. These include Gombe, Bauchi, Jigawa, Kebbi, Akwa Ibom and Delta states. We have MoU with them. They are providing security, fire cover, marshalling and technical assistance. The airports are standard already and they did not build the airports without our consultation. They consulted the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) through the Ministry of Aviation. During that consultation, we gave them the guideline in designing the airport for compliance. We provide them with technical advice so that they would do it in accordance with international best practice.
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