Post by Trade facilitator on Feb 14, 2017 22:21:58 GMT 1
The world now is no more focusing on only classroom work; rather the actual field work. Honestly, the aviation industry has gone beyond classroom theories; unfortunately, in Nigeria a lot of people are still living in the aphorism `as it where, so shall it be’. We cannot afford to continue with the same old mentality of theorizing the production of glucose from starch, but actually making the glucose from starch.
Firstly, the president Ebele Jonathan government came up with the beautiful idea of building thirteen (13) cargo airports for the export of agricultural produce. Very inspiring idea, however, there is a challenge that thinking.
Of cause there were some airports designated as cargo airports in Nigeria, such could be referred to as blue-sky projects, the current thinking among airlines and cargo operations negate the blue-sky project as such will never work. President Buhari’s led federal government must recognize that the world is more challenging now than ever before. Most of the aircraft manufacturers’ direction, in terms of aircraft industry is changing. There will come a time when the services of cargo airline may not be needed due to emerging trend in technology in aircraft manufacturing across the globe.
Emirate is already taking the lead in this direction. Some time past, Emirate ordered for 150 fleets of Boeing 777-300ER. This particular aircraft accommodates 400 passengers, takes both their regular and excess luggage and still has the capacity to ferry 30 tons of cargo on its two engines. As at the time Emirate placed its order for these aircrafts, each of those aeroplanes was sold for 280 million dollars
Some countries do not have a clear sign of where they are coming from. Why did the Emirate do that? For instance, Emirate fly into Lagos airport twice daily; afternoon and evenings on the same 777-300ER. So imagine Emirate coming into Lagos with 2 of their flights and taking 30 tons of cargo in each trip, which amount to 60 tons. Now 60 tons they are carrying is equivalent of one flight of an Airbus 330 cargo plane. Airbus 330 takes between 60 to 65 tons. That is what it can lift with passengers. Therefore, it is much cheaper in terms of cost with 777- 300ER.
If therefore you start designating 13 Nigerian airports as cargo airports, is it viable for cargo airline to fly there to drop and lift cargo? Or just go there for the fun of it? Therefore, most of these agricultural produce should be moved to the regular airports. Just like Akure, Ibadan, Yola etc
Historically, cargo traffic statistics as published by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) for the period between 1993 and 2009 indicates that 1286 billon kilogrammes of cargo were recorded in 19 airports, while 3 others Akure, Osubi and Katsina had no cargo traffic. From the domestic wing of the MMA alone, the FAAN generated 71,144,395 kilogrammes and 1,057,905,169 kilogrammes respectively from the international and local wing during the period under review.
At the domestic wing of Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja, it realized 1,437,698 kilogramme, while 40,271,706 kilogrammes were recorded at the international wing
About 2,112,112 kilogrammes were transported through the domestic wing of Port-Harcourt International Airport, while 52,266,523kilogrammes passed through the International wing. 2,046,446kilogrammes went through the domestic wing of Kano International Airport, and 53,859,213kilogrammes were recorded against its International wing. At the Enugu, Kaduna, Kalabar and Sokoto airports, the figures were 108,599, 1,187,113 and 30,145, and 34,214kilogrammes respectively
In all, it goes to show that MMA1A Lagos alone accounts for over 90per cent of cargo in/outbound Nigeria.
