Stories by Louis Ibah
After almost 28 years of unsuccessful attempts to get its 22 airports certified with International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) standards, Nigeria is finally getting ready to present two of its prime airports, the Murtala Muhammed International Airport Lagos and the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja for the elitist ICAO audit. Scaling through the ICAO audit means the operations, facilities and personnel at the certified airports are in line with what is obtainable in any of the world’s best airports. The certification would also give Nigeria the infrastructural, safety and security leverage to kickstart it’s dream of creating a hub out of the Lagos airport for the West African sub-region.
The audit exercise, according to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), would start from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport Lagos.
Why ICAO certification
Many aerodromes (airports) in Nigeria lack functional and effective aerodrome operations manual, they also rely on obsolete facilities, without perimeter fences, fire-fighting or contemporary emergency rescue facilities or plan as well as aerodrome security programme as prescribed by ICAO.
These flaws have not only kept Nigerian airports in the league of the worst airports in Africa and globally, but also served as a disincentive to efforts to attract investments to the wider aviation industry. In fact, experts have hinged the continuous charging of high insurance premium on airlines operating in Nigeria to the fact that airports in the country are considered high risk zones given that none of then is ICAO certified. Premiums would crash if the country operates ICAO certified airports.
Worried by this ugly trend, the then government of President Goodluck Jonathan had commenced massive infrastructure upgrade of the airports to qualify them for certification.
What ICAO would like to see
According to Mr. Peter Hampson, an international aviation consultant, who has worked with many governments and regulators on airport certification, for any airport to be ICAO certified, it must have adequate fire cover, efficient airspace communication infrastructure, water hydrant, fire fighting vehicles, airfield lighting, perimeter fencing. ICAO certification requirements also stipulate that an airport must have certified aviation security personnel, state-of-the-art navigational equipment that supports night and day flights,standard runway and runway strength known as the Pavement Classification Number (PCN), which enable airports and airlines to know if a given aircraft may put undue stress on a runway. Other conditions include, non-interference from government, standard instrument landing systems, and efficient baggage handling facilities,among others.
The absence of these facilities from the checklist (known technically as gaps or open items) could prevent the airport from getting the ICAO certification during an audit exercise.
How ready is Nigeria
Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mr. Saleh Dunoma, who spoke recently to aviation correspondents on the readiness of Nigeria for the ICAO certification, said the country had been working to close all the open items or gaps that could hinder the receipt of the ICAO certification for the Lagos airport.
Said Dunoma,”As far as FAAN is concerned, we are ready. If I remember rightly, there are over 100 items that we need to close. We have been working on this for quite some time now and most of the open items have been closed.
“Certification is all about safety. By going through the process of certification, we have achieved a lot of safety standards. The level of safety standard we have achieved is higher than what it used to be before the certification process. This is what is important to us
“Certification is important. We would not know that there are lot of things-little little things that we needed to do to make sure that we close all such items. Without the assessment, we would never know that there are open items. With certification, everything was looked into, including documentation. Sometimes, a telephone number for example the emergency contact telephone numbers have to be looked at. In case of emergency, may be one person has been transferred and the phone number has changed and his name has changed. Under normal circumstances, we would not bother. But with the certification, we must make sure that whoever phone number is there is current. Certification is making sure that everything is current and checked on regular basis. It is not only getting the certificate but sustenance of the certificate is important. Yes, we have worked hard that we close the items, but we must sustain it.
“Certification also makes it a must that all personnel are properly trained. If you acquire an equipment for example, certification makes it a must to train the people that will operate the machine at any given time. If there is a change in technology, we must change our operating procedure also especially if there is a new model of that machine. And we must train the personnel so they are abreast with the new technology.
“Once the certification is granted, the NCAA will keep coming to check all what is done from time to time. And if the NCAA finds out that there are so many things not done, they have the liberty to withdraw the certificate.
“That means we have to come up with a maintenance system of our runway, airfield lightings. In fact, certification is adding another level to the maintenance and sustenance of all airport operations to what we used to have before now. It has added another level to the improvement of safety at the airport. It is also going to make the airport users, especially the airlines more comfortable. It is going to make the airlines more comfortable in the sense that they now know that we have an international standard that we must make sure we sustain. It will also go a long way in assuring the insurance companies that as an operator FAAN is doing a lot of things in line with what the regulator wants. And it might even reduce insurance premium for airline operators,” Dunuma added.
Challenges
Dunoma said the challenges at the beginning were resources. At the beginning, we thought we might not need much resources. But at the end of the day, after the assessment, we discovered that we have a lot to do. The only thing we needed to do was to make provisions in our budget that these are special fund to address the certification. Once we got the assessment and the fund provided, our engineers swung into action. The engineers came with the estimate of how some of the technical issues, some of the documentation and some of the new things we need to provide to make sure that we close the gaps. So, with the provision in our budget, there was no issue again. Budget was provided and everything is going smoothly and that is why we are at this stage. Once the certification of Lagos airport is achieved, Nigeria would be presenting the Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano, Enugu and Kaduna International airports for certification.
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