The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), has announced setting up of a committee to map out plans to boost revenue generation by looking at the non-aeronautical sources.

The Managing Director, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mr. Saleh Dunoma, during the inauguration of the committee said that it was time airport authorities in Africa diversified their sources of revenue by exploring the non-aeronautical instead of relying solely on aeronautical sources.

According Dunoma, airport administrators outside the African continent had keyed to non-aeronautical revenue sources.

He noted that the committee, chaired by him, is made up of the relevant directorates and departments responsible for revenue generation for FAAN.

The managing director said the committee would come out with a roadmap to enhance revenue for the agency noting that FAAN as an agency could not be left behind in development of its airport infrastructure and that “the only way to achieve this is to diversify revenue generation and tap into the myriad of opportunities in the system.”

He stated that other airport authorities on the continent were also deliberating on how to increase their non-aeronautical revenue services, which he said formed the theme of this year’s Airports Council International (ACI) held in Egypt.

“What we intend to do is to diversify our revenue sources. In Africa, we have not tapped into non-aeronautical sources and we are encouraging African airports to look at non-aeronautical revenue sources of revenue because aeronautical sources of revenues have limitations; they are highly dependent on flight operations.

“The non-aeronautical revenues are being developed so much that they can be in pari passu with the aeronautical sources of revenues. This is what we want African airports to develop. Some papers were presented to guide African airports to develop that area.

“As a matter of fact…I set up a team on revenue generation and this team is chaired by me. It is very sensitive to the survival of African airports, especially FAAN. We started the meeting today (Wednesday) and we will continue to meet every week until we get to where we want to be.

“We have not come up with a target yet, but the committee will come up with that. There are lots of departments involved, including engineering and commercial. By the time we develop some projects, we will have revenue targets that we want to achieved. This will be done by the committee,” he said.

Thereafter, he said before the end of 2019, aviation security (AVSEC) personnel would have been approved to bear arms in order to increase their surveillance of the airports.

However, he said before achieving that AVSEC department would require some trainings and approvals especially from the National Security Adviser (NSA).

He also said background checks would be done on some of the personnel before the approval.

“There are certain projects that we need to implement before we can start carrying arms. Number one, we have to get the arms. Number two, we have to store the ammunitions somewhere. We need to embark on projects that will enable us to have storage somewhere at the airport. Number three, we need to profile and train.

“It is not everybody that will bear arms. This, we must apply. We cannot train ourselves. We have to be trained by those that have been long in the system; the State Security Service and the Nigeria police. Also, we want to make sure that we get certification from the office of the National Security Adviser. We have to go through these processes. As soon as we are through with all these, they can then be allowed to carry arms. We intend to do this before the end of the year.”

On the certification of international airports by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Dunoma assured that other airports would be certified soon emphasising that the exercise was at different stages of completion.

He disclosed that Kano, Port Harcourt, Enugu and Kaduna airports were going through certification processes.

On the second runway for Abuja Airport, Dunoma said the project was part of the 2019 budget and expressed the hope that it would scale through the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP).

“That has gone far. This is a big document here. The document contains the design and everything about the second runway. It is in our 2019 budget. Actually, the consultancy is being processed. As soon as we get our clearance from the BPP, we will commence work on it. In fact, we have gone far on this,” he said.