Concession as Panacea for Airport Infrastructure Decay
The poor execution of airport remodelling projects by the federal government has shown that only the private sector can effectively develop air transport infrastructure in Nigeria, writes Chinedu Eze
A major Nigerian airline operator observed last week that the available infrastructure at the airports do not have the capacity for a larger number of aircraft fleet; therefore, there is no need for airline operators to continue to acquire more aircraft until airport facilities were expanded.
One of the major challenges of Nigeria’s aviation sector is the inability of government to build befitting terminals. The existing ones were allowed to decay due to lack of maintenance and they were not expanded to meet passenger demand. They were also left with obsolete operational system, while the rest of the world moved on in terms of technology to enhance passenger facilitation.
Many in the industry have insisted that government may be wasting its limited resources if it insists that it would continue to own, build and manage airport facilities; rather, it should concession these infrastructure to the private sector, which would deploy funds to build befitting terminals and other facilities, while government agency like the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) monitors and regulates operations at these terminals, which technically are still owned by government. Public Private Partnership
Many in the industry canvass that the best option is concession under public private partnership (PPP), whereby private organisations take over airport facilities, build it to agreed specification by government and manage it for a period and hand it over, according to agreements. They also canvased that government should have established legal and administration framework that would provide the platform for such concession engagements.
Industry analyst, Chris Aligbe, noted in a recent interview that concession remains the best option for Nigeria’s airport infrastructure development and a ready example is the domestic terminal of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos (MMA2) built and being managed by Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL) which is adjudged the best in the country.
Aligbe agreed with the aforementioned operator that the facilities present cannot accommodate large aircraft fleet and noted that as the number of airlines increase and as more international carries operate into Nigeria, there should be a need for facility expansion and modernisation.
“I agree, the number of flights coming into the country have trebled in the last few years and the infrastructure has not been developed to meet this. And it is going to be harsher in the years ahead; say two, three years to come. If we bring in our own national flag carrier, the problem will be worse. What is being developed as a terminal at the airport with the Chinese is not standard. It is small and the facilities are not there. There is no link between what is being developed to the current terminal and that is not what it should be. There are no avio-bridges and you are going to be bussing passengers to go and board their flights.
“And so we need to address the infrastructure and that is why I sincerely believe that the first thing will be to concession these facilities. I believe in concession; very, very efficient concession model. That is what we should do; we need to concession our airport facilities.
Also former Managing Director of FAAN, George Uriesi, said the only solution to poor airport infrastructure is concession.
“I have always said that concession is the right thing to do. That is why South African airports are the way they are. They are partly privatised and government lets them operate independently. Government is a shareholder but it does not intervene. It is inactive shareholder. That is one thing that South Africa did that is very good,” Uriesi said. Bi-Courtney Example
Last week the Minister of Aviation, Osita Chidoka noted when BASL unveiled its Common User Passenger Processing System (CUPP) that MMA2 has given example about how a terminal could be technology driven and passenger facilitation could be made easy.
“What is needed is not about having somebody like me or someone that is better than me to run the affairs of the aviation industry, I think MMA2 has offered the template about how government should go about the issue of the operations of airports in the country. Feelers from the stakeholders in the industry including the pilots, grand handlers, etc also gave it to MMA2.
“This technology is wholly welcome, and MMA2 is putting us into it and we want to believe that the improvement in passengers’ experience in MMA2, the continuous quest for improvement; the continuous quest for excellence will be sustained. This continuous improvement is something I would like other managers of airports in Nigeria to begin to emulate. If they cannot truly capture it, all they need to do is just copy and paste since the template is already there.
“This is, indeed, one more step in the aviation industry to make the airport customer-friendly. What MMA2 has done today is to show that what passengers and other airport users see in Dubai, Paris, UK and US can be eminently replicated here in Nigeria.”
It is believed that Bi-Courtney was able to achieve this because it is divorced from the encumbrances and drawbacks inherent in government management. It has its focus and it aims to maintain international standards above what is obtained from existing airports in the country.
According to Bi-Courtney, the newly introduced technology innovations include the CUPPS, the self-service check-in kiosks, automated access gates and the Baggage Reconciliation System (BRS). And MMA2 is the first and only terminal to deploy such in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa.
Technology-driven Passenger Facilitation
For instance, the CUPPS offers improved service and enhanced security through integration of e-gates for access control into passengers’ waiting lounge and other restricted areas. The system does this by automatically generating boarding passes and bag tag coupons, which facilitate and hasten passenger processing through the use of 2D barcode scanners to check-in. Once checked-in, passengers can make their way to the boarding gates by simply swiping their tickets at the e-gates and then, proceed to board. The e-gates also stores information about each passenger, making it absolutely impossible for any unauthorised person to gain access to sterile parts of the terminal
This technology also allows selfcheck-in by passengers via strategically positioned self-service kiosks, limiting the need to interface with airlines’ officials at check-in counters. Using the self-check-in kiosks takes just a few seconds, therefore, saving passengers precious time to do other important things. Besides, this technology allows the terminal to maximise the utilisation of check-in counters and gate resources. This will, invariably, enable airlines to expand and easily meet seasonal traffic demands.
MMA2 is also now equipped with BAGERA, an ICAO-compliant comprehensive reconciliation and tracking system that uses the latest technology purposely designed to track passengers’ bag from checkin to loading. BAGERA not only meets all security requirements, it also provides enhanced quality of service to passengers. Key features of BAGERA include: It matches bags to boarded passengers; travellers are now sure their bags will not be left behind and ensures they are fewer lost and misrouted bags. Private Sector Investment
Speaking at the occasion, the chairman of BASL, Dr. Wale Babalakin, summed up the philosophy behind MMA2 as: “Considerable cerebral input into very modest resources”, while adding: “And I make bold to say today that if you combine an intellectual leadership in governance with the phenomenal private sector, you will grow the infrastructure of this country beyond the imagination of the people. My belief is that money should follow strategy. Strategy should not follow money. It is not the best. MMA2 symbolises how money has followed strategy and not the other way.
He further noted: “It is my belief that there is nothing called local aviation. Aviation is international. There is nothing called Nigerian aviation. Any time you say Nigerian aviation or Nigerian tendencies, we diminish ourselves. We must seek to comply with international standards and if we wish to make a good impression, we must exceed those standards. The Honourable Minister has shown me here that if you appoint as minister of aviation somebody with international perspective, someone who is considerably knowledgeable, and who is upright in his ways, aviation will go very far. I hope this is noted by those in position of authority.”
On his part, the Chief Executive Officer of BASL, Mr. Christophe Penninck, outlined the challenges the company confronted in its bid to offer an entirely new and world class template to the aviation industry in Nigeria.
According to Penninck, from the first idea of installing the new system till its eventual inauguration, it took the relentless efforts of the board, management team, various departments in BASL; the airlines; the ground handling companies, and the system providers in the past 18 months to achieve this objective.
He further stated, “We at BASL didn’t want to do things halfway. We could have just installed a new system on the existing computers, original check-in desks, and limit ourselves to a basic check-in system. But based on extensive research of what best system is available abroad, we selected RESA to be our system provider. The system we are inaugurating today is the same as installed in major international airports like Charles De Gaulle, Bangkok International; the brand new airport terminal in Mauritius and over 200 airports worldwide. We went the whole nine yards.”
Some industry observers excoriated government for its inability to complete the airport remodelling project. They suggest that government should have done more concession of some of the existing terminals and also give investors space to build modern facilities to meet the challenge of increasing passenger traffic.
Former commandant of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, Group Captain John Ojikutu (retd) said that government should concession airport infrastructure and face the job of providing safety critical projects at the airports like landing aids, runways and runway lighting and other essential facilities to improve safety.
It is hoped that as the incoming government plans to run a lean government and also create funds for social and essential amenities, it must have to divest the funding of airport terminal facilities through concession.