FG, Stakeholders Tangle Over Aerotropolis

Last week the Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, reiterated the intention of the Buhari’s administration to kick-off the aerotropolis programme, even at the twilight of its tenure, but stakeholders have frowned at the plan to demolish agency’s fac

Writing for Airport Council International (ACI), Sabrina Guerieri, in an article published online on January 31, 2019, encapsulated what aerotropolis could mean, which according to the writer, is a conglomeration of many businesses happening around the airport.

She explained that the basic premise is as such, “because many businesses rely on distant products and customers, and because we live in an age of “instant gratification,” where the airport will increasingly become the nucleus of economic activity, with land-use that connects local and global markets. In other words, the competitiveness of an aerotropolis is anchored upon aviation connectivity and its ability to move people and products rapidly around the world (Appold 2013; Hubbard 2017).”

The conception by the federal government is ideal and with the growing population, especially the ever increasing number of Nigerians that travel, the country needs to maximise the benefits offered by the air transport sector.

Quoting Greg Lindsay in his work, ‘Aerotropolis: How we will live next,’ Guerieri explained that the aerotropolis represented the logic of globalisation, noting, “the three rules of real estate have changed from location, location, location, to accessibility, accessibility, accessibility. There’s a new metric. It’s no longer space; its time and cost. And if you look closely at the aerotropolis, what appears to be sprawl is slowly evolving into a system reducing both.”

She noted that as population, air travel and resource consumption increase, there are indications that great cities were often built where commerce and transport flourished. From land to sea to air transport, the logic follows that the cities of tomorrow will be built on and around airports. Initially aerotropolis attracted dampened in interests, but Guerieri said it has become a reality. “Examples of planned or organic aerotropolises can be found in or surrounding Amsterdam-Schiphol, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Dubai, Dusseldorf, Hong

Kong, Incheon, Memphis, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Washington Dulles airports.” (Kasarda, 2015).

BENEFITS

Guerieri also observed that the lands around these airports have become magnets for a range of economic activities that thrive on long-distance connectivity, serving as “regional economic accelerators, crystalizing and driving business development outward for many miles. ” She said this in turn has a multiplying effect; a potential to generate huge socio-economic returns to local and national economies.

“Airports have evolved from infrastructure providers to complex businesses that produce considerable commercial development within and well beyond their parameters. The quest to improve the passenger experience is one of the chief factors that have led the evolution of city airports into ‘airport cities’ (Kasarda, 2015). Catering to the needs of passengers, particularly within the passenger-terminal through the offering of a wide-array of consumer services, has given the airport all the commercial functions of a metropolitan center,” she further explained.

In Nigeria the first time the development of Aerotropolis was mooted under Senator Stella Oduah as the Minister of Aviation.

Shortly before she was removed as the Minister, she commended the concept as offering gilded prospects for changing the story of Nigeria’s aviation industry. She explained how such application of the concept would avail the nation’s airports of five-star hotels, housing estates, and aircraft maintenance facilities. There could also be world-class medical facilities and services as well as recreation facilities, among many other benefits.

“In specific terms, the Nigerian aerotropolis project is expected to earn for the country the admittedly impressive annual revenue of N100 billion, and provide jobs for at least 10 million Nigerians,” she projected at that time.

Citing example with the Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport in The Netherlands, which was an active aerotropolis, she said that there were over 2,000 companies and more than 58,000 people at work on its grounds at that time. Munich Airport in Germany, another active aerotropolis, had a wide complement of facilities that included a full service hospital, a full service grocery store, swimming pool, and open-air forum that serves as a concert venue.

“Africa is not left out in the parade with South Africa taking the lead. Already in April 2013, the South African city of Ekurilieni near Johannesburg hosted the World Airport Cities Conference,” she had said.

AEROTROPOLIS UNDER SIRIKA

So, it was a familiar terrain when the Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, promised that the Buhari’s administration would continue with the project. So far, he has tried to realise it under the Aviation Road Map. However, many industry stakeholders were aghast last week when he reinstated that the aviation agency headquarters would be demolished because they have become old contraception and some of them have long passed their utility. Many in the industry were asking whether the demolition was a sine qua none to realising the project in Lagos or the minister feels that if such action was not taken, the desired seriousness needed to be applied to realise the objective would not be done.

On the planned demolition of structures housing aviation offices in Lagos, which include the headquarters of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the headquarters of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA); just as the edifice, the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB0 was demolished earlier in the year, forcing majority of the workers to relocate to Abuja, the Minister said that the offices were decrepit structures that were hitherto planned to be temporary and now should inevitably give way to the lofty aerotropolis that was aimed at transforming the aviation industry.

The minister argued that it was to have this lofty project that prompted the Buhari’s administration to want to demolish these existing structures; even at the twilight of the administration.

“I wish that it (the demolition) would happen tomorrow morning. I wish that happens tomorrow morning. This, chaos is what you want as an airport? This chaos in all of these places is it what you want for an aerotropolis, which is part of the roadmap? Don’t you want a rail link between the old domestic terminal and the new international terminal? Don’t you want that? Don’t you want pattern structures where there are cinemas, Spas, shopping malls, banks, airline offices and a befitting headquarters for Lagos? The chaos that you have here is what you call an airport? Do you want to continue to live like this? Do you want to keep going to Dubai and come back and say wow these people have done wonderfully well? Do you want keep going to Ghana and using your phone and say, common Ghana, see Ghana? Is that what you want? So given the chance, I will demolish all the headquarters. In fact, I told somebody that I am going to demolish from where Arik used to be, Nigeria Airways, all the way to police to Aero Contractors to Bristol and something that is befitting of Lagos. Come on, this is Lagos; this is our premier airport,” he had said.

Some industry stakeholders told THISDAY that the minister knew the way the Nigerian government works, being very close to government at various levels and positions for a long time; so he knows that to drive an action, a radical step has to be taken.