Thursday, August 18, 2011

Port Harcourt Airport May be Acquired by Nigerian Airline.

Major Nigerian Airline, with the highest number of modern aircraft in the country, is currently negotiating with the Federal Government to acquire the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa as core investor.

If the plan becomes successful, as THISDAY learnt that government is seriously considering the request, the airline would use the airport as its operational base, even as it has plans to also acquire stakes in other viable airports in the country.

As the largest airline in the country, the management of the domestic carrier has made its interest known since government indicated interest to concession the airports and many industry operators said that with such large fleet it is pertinent for the airline to have controlling stakes in the airport, which it could use as operational and maintenance base.

The airline, which intended to build its own maintenance hangar, may take over the one built by the Rivers state government at the Port Harcourt airport, which has remained unutilised since its completion.

Rivers state government is currently talking with the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) on how the parastatal would manage the maintenance facility. But if the airline succeeds in acquiring the airport it may have to negotiate with Rivers to also take over the hangar, which it would equip for A to C maintenance checks.

Operating on its own airport and carrying out some levels of aircraft maintenance locally will save the airline and other airlines in the country huge amount of money spent on foreign exchange to ferry aircraft outside the country for maintenance.

According to Secretary General of the Airline Operators of Nigeria (OAS), Mohammed Joji, Nigerian airlines spend over N3 billion on aircraft maintenance overseas every year.

Since the past three years, the Federal Government had announced that it would concession many of the Nigeria’s airports through public, private partnership (PPP) as it could no longer effectively maintain the airports.

Since that announcement and the successful concessioning of the domestic terminal at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos (MMA2), government has continued to prevaricate over further concession of airport facilities.

But on Monday the Aviation Minister, Mrs. Stella Oduah, who promised to urgently improve facilities at some airports in the country, said that government would bring in investors that would plough their money into some of the airports to modernise them and make them more viable.

“The change that we all desire, and which we are vigorously pushing, cannot, understandably be funded from public resources alone. We need the private sector to partner with us to deliver the huge promise, which the sector holds for the growth of the Nigerian economy. But the partnership must of necessity put the interest of the ordinary Nigerian first and above every other consideration.”

The Minister said that huge opportunities exist for Public Private Partnership (PPP) in the aviation sector, adding, “we urge investors, both foreign and local to take advantage of these opportunities to invest in the development of facilities including parks, terminals, hangers, etc. Already, we are partnering with private investors through concessioning of some of our facilities and infrastructure.”

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