By Chinelo Obogo

The enormous cost needed to keep all airports across the country operational makes it non-feasible and difficult to have a 24 -hour operation, the Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Capt. Rabiu Musa Yadudu, has said

During a courtesy visit to the League of Airport Aviation Correspondents (LAAC) on Wednesday,  Yadudu said some airports have just one or two flights operating daily, as such, nobody or airport authority would keep an aerodrome functional when there is no commensurate profit to be made from the venture.

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He cited an instance where an airline wrote to the Authority asking to operate 24 hours to Yola and that after getting the letter, it wrote back to the carrier, giving assurance that it would mobilise equipment, personnel and resources to the facility to aid seamless operations for the airline only for the carrier not to pursue the interest any longer. He noted that even in other developed countries, so many airports still have sunrise to sunset airport operations.

His words, “The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) wants all airports to operate 24-hours. We are service providers and we would like to make money like every service providers do. Someone has to pay for the 24-hour service. Nobody keeps airport open 24 hours for an airport that is not busy and has just one, two or three airlines going to the place.

“An airline once wrote to FAAN that it wanted to operate to Yola airport. We looked at it and said we were not going to deny them the service. Having to run a 24-hour operation is good, but it takes a lot of effort and costs so much.