How to achieve airport hubs for Nigeria, by Kuku
For Nigeria to achieve hub status for its airports, the Federal Government needs to meet certain conditions beyond just providing the needed infrastructure, Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority
For Nigeria to achieve hub status for its airports, the Federal Government needs to meet certain conditions beyond just providing the needed infrastructure, Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mrs Olubunmi Kuku has said.
According to her, to drive hub status for airports, the government needs to either improve the business environment where there’s a lot of trade activities that is happening that brings people into the country or even the economic activity.
She said current efforts by the Federal Government to rehabilitate the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, will push Nigeria towards the ambitious status where there will be transit facilities for passengers
Kuku said in Africa , three countries : Egypt, Ethiopia and South Africa have developed hubs around Cairo, Addis Ababa and Johannesburg for seamless movement of passengers at their airports.
Such model, the FAAN boss is being adopted in Nigeria as the Federal Government consolidate efforts to improve airport infrastructure.
She said: “But I will start by saying that if you look at the likes of Cairo, so look at the Cairo International Airport and then look at the Oliver Tambo in Johannesburg, they’ve done something that works extremely well, so actually it’s three of them.
So look at Oliver Tambo, look at Addis Ababa and then look at Cairo. What works extremely well for them is the fact that they’ve not just made their airports a destination for passengers who are coming into their country, but they’ve made it a hub.
“A hub is literally an environment or an airport environment where you’re able to have transit passengers move from one location to the other without necessarily making that country their end destination. In Nigeria, for example, and when you look at the key factors that drive passenger traffic, the biggest is GDP.
“When you look at the GDP of the Nigerian population and you compare it to our passenger traffic, it’s actually very low, it’s less than two per cent .
“And what that means is that a lot of the passengers that are a lot of the Nigerian passengers are not traveling in contrast to all of the other areas. For us to be able to drive passenger traffic effectively, it means that you need to do a couple of things.
“One, you need to either improve the business environment where there’s a lot of trade activities that is happening that brings people into the country or even the economic activity. So whether it’s tourism, whether it’s business activity. But when we start to look at the hub, we really see the future in two things.
“One is in driving the hub strategy and the second is also in for both passenger and cargo. To make the hub strategy effective, a couple of things need to happen. It’s not just about developing an airport or building infrastructure.
“But it really requires that we look at the enablers. And what are these enablers? For example, look at the airlines. So for us to be able to increase our aircraft movements and have additional points of entry, we look at the bilateral air service agreements that we have with other countries.
“I believe that in this administration of the last three years, the Minister has actually improved the number of routes in terms of airlines that are going outside of the country and also being able to come into the Nigerian market. But what that also means is that as we start to say we’re driving a hub, one, you need to make sure that there’s a transit area. “Today, within the Nigerian airport, it’s quite difficult for you to transit because there’s no transit facility.
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And this is actually one of the things that we’re doing as part of the rehabilitation work that is happening”.
Speaking during a CNBC Television interview, Kuku spoke of plans to use intentional airport infrastructure to change passenger travel experience.
She said: “So one of the things that we did, as I mentioned earlier, it’s not just about designing an airport. You basically designed an airport from inside in.
“What we did was to look at the entire passenger journey from when you’re approaching the airport environment. So whether it’s tools, whether it’s the passenger drop off or curbside, and then when you come in. If you notice, over the last few months, we’ve actually redesigned some of our airport operations, and that has also been incorporated into the new design that allows improved passenger flow, where you’re potentially able to check in and even using certain touch points.
“So it’s not just the infrastructure. We’re also using how we can leverage technology to improve the touch points, e-gates biometrics. Right now you have the biometrics and the e-gates being used on entry.
We’ve incorporated biometrics on exit as well, which is incorporated into the new design. So all of those are things that we’re considering heavily. But I think the big win for us will also be the transit facility that is being built and incorporated into this new design.”
