Aviation, hospitality stakeholders count losses from Abuja airport closure

Domestic airline owners and other investors in Nigeria’s aviation industry are reporting huge loses with the shutdown of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA) for the repair on its dilapidated runway. The government had shut down the NAIA on March 8, 2019 and earmarked about N5.8billion for the project slated to be completed on April 19, 2017.

Daily Sun learnt that with only three weeks taken up out of the six weeks period slated for the rehabilitation of the NAIA runway, “there has been series of complaints from private sector investors accusing the government of compounding their already deplorable financial situation by having to completely shutting down the Abuja airport without opting for measures that would have still kept the airport partially open for business.”

Just last week, most air travellers opt to either go by road or cancel all engagements in Abuja until the airport is reopened. This was even as some local airlines scaled down their flight frequencies into the Kaduna Airport owing to dwindling passenger traffic. First Nation Airways was the first to announce it was suspending its operations into the Kaduna Airport citing low passenger patronage. Outside the early morning flights, most airline operators it was learnt are flying half-filled aircraft burning fuel purchased at exorbitant cost and also ending up incurring huge loss.

An aviation analyst, Olu Ohunayo, told Daily Sun that aside the direct impact of the shutdown of the Abuja airport on businesses, most private sectors operators are of the view that where the government got it wrong, was in its inability to convince more foreign airlines to fly into the alternate Airport outside Ethiopian Airline.

“The foreign airlines refusal to fly into Kaduna has negative implications for the economy. In fact, most programmes and activities billed for Abuja have either been cancelled or postponed due to the closure of the airport,” said Ohunayo, who is also a member of the Aviation Round Table (ART).

The Sun, April 3, 2017

 

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