Chinelo Obogo
The Managing Director of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Capt. Fola Akinkuotu has revealed that his agency had to resort to collecting loans from the Federal Government through the Ministry of Aviation in order to ensure that salaries were paid.
In an interview with Arise TV on Sunday, August 23, Akinkuotu explained that the due to negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the aviation sector, revenue generation was at an all time low, hence the agency had to resort to borrowing in order to pay salaries. He also expressed optimism that the industry will recover but that it is likely to make full recovery by 2023.
On the issue of bail out for the industry, he said it is still being discussed at the ministry level as impact assessment is still being carried out.
“The limited international flights that would come in would not be enough to cover our expenditure but we would be cautious to make sure that we what we have goes round. Part of what is needed in any circumstance is to be frugal with your funds. We never have enough, so what we have, we make good efforts to make do with it and we spend judiciously. We have had to go over our immediate funding system to pay salaries. We got help from the Federal Government, the Minister of Aviation, Captain Hadi Sirika was very nice and gracious enough to ensure that the workforce got paid so the government must be commended.
“Even as we speak, there are people who don’t come to work or who were asked not to come to work but they are being paid. So, the issue of our taking a loan from the government was to ensure that our workers were paid, whether or not they have worked. We want to be able to provide for them and make sure that when they come back to work, they are able to perform optimally without thinking about their financial situation and their homes so that they can concentrate on their jobs.
“The issue of bail out is being addressed by the minister of aviation and he is more than adequately capable of addressing the issues of how the bailout will be structured. What he has said is that efforts are being made to look at the impact of COVID on the industry. There is no doubt that the industry has been badly hit by COVID and we don’t see a full recovery until 2023. It will take us a little while to get back the optimum. Having said that, I do believe that bailout or some form of assistance is being arranged at the ministry level but that is left to the ministry to discuss and to solve,” Akinkuotu said.
In a related development, the agency has created 9 new Performance Based Navigation (PBN) Area Navigation 10 (RNAV10) regional routes across the nation’s airspace.
Making this disclosure in a release, Akinkuotu listed the newly created PBN routes to include UQ300- connecting Lagos to the Central African Republic; UY604-linking Abuja, Port Harcourt to Southern Africa; UQ181- connecting East and Central Africa to Europe through Nigerian airspace and UQ400-connecting southern Africa to North Africa through Nigeria to Europe.
Also created are UQ324-from Adis Ababa to Niamey through Nigeria; UY333-from Tunisia/Algeria to Lagos; UY87-from East and Central Africa through Nigeria to Accra and Abidjan; UY57-from East and Central Africa through Nigeria coastal airspace to Cotonou, Lome and Abidjan as well as UQ200-connecting Yaonde to Lagos. Akinkuotu also disclosed that apart from the PBN routes, NAMA has also created 6 new flight-plannable direct routes.
The NAMA boss said “the flight-plannable direct routes are to be used by compliant airlines’ flight management systems and would avail them the opportunity of flight- planning and routing within the Nigerian airspace from an entry point direct to an exit point without recourse to existing Air Traffic service (ATS) route network.”