The urge to construct airports by most state governors in Nigeria is on the rise. Just a very few states in the country today lack airports in their domains, while some have two or planned to have a second airport.

Apart from the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos, Port Harcourt International Airport (PHIA), and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja, other 23 airports in the under the purview of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), are not viable, yet the number of airports continued to climb.

In the last decade, state governments have expended over N350 billion on airport constructions, but with little return on expenditure. Some of the state-owned airports are Anambra Airport, Ekiti Cargo Airport, Bayelsa International Airport, M.K.O Abiola International Airport, Osun, Ogun state Gateway Agro-Cargo International Airport, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Jigawa, Kebbi, Gombe, Imo, Taraba, Katsina, Zamfara, Niger, Ebonyi, Nasarawa and Yobe.

Gombe, Kebbi and Uyo Airports, among other state-owned aerodromes, are wriggling under low utilisation.

The Lagos Airport has over the years been the busiest airport in Nigeria with Abuja airport emerging a distant second busiest.

FAAN is compelled to take over the management of some of these state-owned, which are not self-sustaining airports. As FAAN takes over the airport, it deploys more staff and personnel to them, while its overhead costs skyrocket, yet no further support from the government.

Just recently, the Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mrs. Olubunmi Kuku, lamented the burden of unviable airports on the agency. According to her, only three of the nation’s airports under its management are profitable and contribute largely to the growth of the aviation sector.

She explained that the remaining airports are being subsidised as they do not get passenger traffic commensurate with their operational cost. Explaining further that the majority of the airports managed by FAAN required maintenance and upgrades in critical infrastructure like the terminal areas, the landside as well as the airside.

‘In the Federation, the authority planned to provide cross-subsidies to certain new airports under development. We have 22 airports which we own and manage. We also have about six or seven airports that are either owned by state governments or private individuals or entities, which we also support with either aviation security or fire and rescue services’[, she said.

“We have several states in the north as well as in the southwest that are coming up with new airports. I would say that based on this today, only three of the airports are actually profitable and contribute largely to the sustenance of the airport companies that we run.

“Rather than building new airports, we need to look at the bottom of the value chain to determine what activities can drive traffic into these airports.”

“Why will you build an airport when you know that in less than 100km, there is another airport? Rather, we should make sure that the existing airports are effectively utilised.”

Grp. Capt. John Ojikutu, aviation analyst, in an interview with our correspondent, queried the economic importance of the airport project to most of the states.

Ojikutu further questioned the volume of cargo, passengers and other businesses that would be attracted to most of the states because of airport projects and advised state governors to channel their resources into construction of motorable roads and other infrastructure for their residents.

He noted that most of the airports in the country today were unattractive because of the poor feasibility studies by their promoters. He said: “One major reason businesses in commercial aviation fail is poor business plans.”

Mr. Chris Aligbe, Spokesman of the defunct national carrier, Nigeria Airways, said that most of the state-owned airports were constructed without economic decisions, but with political decision, adding that inasmuch as airport construction was good for the country and would enhance connectivity among the travelling public, most of the promoters of such projects never considered economic benefits.

According to him, absence of economic benefits had deprived the states of revenues they ought to have generated from the infrastructure as most of the aerodromes were not integrated into the aviation sector plan.

He said that this decision made most of the state-owned airports unviable, irrespective of the resources spent on them by the state governments.

He said: “Inasmuch as it is not integrated into the whole aviation sector plan, it may sound like a waste, but if good thinking goes into it, it won’t be a waste. I will use Akwa Ibom as an example. When it was built, some of us felt it was a destination to nowhere and it was under Obong Attah as the governor then.

“It has a Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility built into it, even though it was empty for years. When they built it, the counterpart for many years was Donald Duke in Cross River State and they have agreed that as Donald Duke was developing Tinana, Calabar Airport was Federal Government and it is impaired; it has no room for expansion.

“So, they agreed that Akwa Ibom Airport would be such that it could carry wide-body aircraft because they were going to construct a road between Akwa Ibom and Tinapa so that people would do business through Akwa Ibom Airport and would be able to link Tinapa.”

Mr. Kingsley Nwokoma, the President, Association of Foreign Airlines and Representatives in Nigeria (AFARN), said that the continuous heavy investment on airport constructions by state governments was a waste of inadequate resources.

Nwokoma, decried that despite the high number of airports in the country, most of them have infrastructure deficit with little investments on facilities. He insisted that apart from Lagos and Abuja airports, which could boast of average infrastructure, most of the country’s 26 airports could boast of state-of-the-art facilities.

He also wondered why most state governments spend so much resources in building substandard airport facilities when the existing ones are not viable and not optimally used.  “Most of the airports in Nigeria still lack good infrastructure and several of the airports can’t be categorised as airports. Now, State governments building airports for me is a waste, he said.

“Why will you build an airport when you know that in less than 100km, there is another airport? Rather, we should make sure that the existing airports are effectively utilised.” Besides, Comrade Ocheme Aba, the General Secretary, National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), said that any airport construction is driven mainly by traffic.

The union leader pointed out that agitation for constriction of airports in Nigeria at the moment was not based on genuine demographics, but maintained that an exception could be made for an agro airport within the Middle Belt as a result of its remoteness to Jos, Ilorin and Abuja.

Rather than any government in the country to construct another airport, Aba canvassed for improvement of airlift of cargo and agro facilities at existing airports. “Of course, there’s the question of targeted markets. Every airport should have a target market; passenger, cargo, agro, or combinations. This will determine where to place attention with regards to facilities at the airport. “These are the areas to invite private capital, not the present fraud of using one’s position to corner already built-up airports under the guise of airports concession,” he added.