Airlines seek extension of operating hours to end gridlock, aircraft redundancy
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Airline operators want infrastructure upgrade and extension of operating hours at the airports in Lagos and Abuja to reduce bottlenecks and ensure full utilisation of expensive assets.
Lagos domestic terminals, where nearly all airlines begin daily operations, slow passenger facilitation in the morning peak periods, impacting the entire network and creating redundancy in aircraft operation, according to The Guardian.
Murtala Muhammed Airport II (MMA2) terminal has multiple boarding gates. But the General Aviation Terminal (GAT) – used by Air Peace, Arik Air, Green Africa, other carriers – has only two gates.
Under-utilisation of aircraft costs local carriers as much as N4.3 billion per plane per year, one of the reasons they struggle and are always on the verge of collapse.
West-Link Airlines Chairman Ibrahim Mshelia argued there is no reason for airport managers to keep welcoming new airlines without expanding infrastructure to meet their growing needs.
He said airlines on a 7 o’clock departure schedule, like Arik, Air Peace, Ibom Air, Aero, and Dana Air, would cumulatively have about 600 passengers to process.
“Because of the infrastructure challenge, it takes you five minutes to check-in each passenger,” he explained.
“Even if you reduce it to two minutes per passenger, how many counters would you need to be able to check-in those people within the two-hour window that the airline has? It is a lot!
“If you [airline] have no space, then you will have congestion, then chaos and then commotion at the end. So, you have issues with passenger delay, sorting baggage, access to the tarmac, moving bags, number of vehicles that can do it and so on.
“There are so many things that are dependent on the infrastructure that we are talking about.
“There is infrastructure but the capacity of airlines has overwhelmed it and one wonders why all these years nothing was done to expand it until only recently that they are doing some expansion.”
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Immediate solution
Mshelia said the immediate solution is to expand the space at Abuja Airport and extend operating hours in Lagos on the rehabilitated Runway18 Left, per reporting by The Guardian.
“Between these two airports, to be frank, there is no problem with daylight operations. So, the quick fix is to open up the entire airport to midnight services.
“If you do so, the airlines will naturally adjust their schedules and give space, it would naturally mitigate this without doing anything to the current infrastructure.
“If you open the airport to close at midnight, you have solved a lot of the problems already, and in Abuja, open up the old international terminal that is not being used.”
‘Nigerian conundrum’ stacks odds against local airlines
Ibom Air Chief Executive Officer George Uriesi has previously lamented the odds are stacked against local airlines because of the “Nigerian conundrum”.
Uriesi said local airlines fly the same aircraft as other carriers in the world but the operator is from Nigeria pays higher costs of acquisition, insurance that is three times more than in Europe, North America and Asia, and uses weak naira to pay in dollars.
“On top of it all, you are operating in a systemically limiting environment that makes it harder for you to be as productive as your colleagues in Europe, Asia and North America.”
The sunset airport phenomenon (in most airports across the country) is a strange one because it is one of the limiters to aircraft utilisation, Uriesi insisted.
Sunset airports operate from 6am or 7am to 6pm or 8pm.
“What is strange is that all of them, from the information declared, have Navigational and visual aids, CAT 1 or 2 Instrument Landing Systems (ILSs) and with runway lighting.”
