By Chinelo Obogo
After 65 years of independence, experts are unanimous in their submission that the Nigerian aviation sector should have soared far above the altitude it currently is.
According to them, the nation, by now, should have hub airports, especially as one of the economic powerhouses of Africa.
Hub airports make seamless air travel possible and allow airlines to enable effective connections for their passengers. This helps them reach their destinations through connecting flights faster and more conveniently.
Sadly, besides tiny countries like Monaco, the Vatican City, San Marino, Liechtenstein and Andorra, Nigeria is the only country with over 220 million citizens that does not have any major hub airport built around major carriers.
Over six decades after its independence, what the country has are originating and destination airports and the revenue loss as a result is colossal.
At the at the 29th LAAC Conference held in Lagos this past August, the chairman of Air Peace, Allen Onyema explained the implications of not having a hub airport. He said: “Air Peace flies to about nine countries in this Africa. You are told that the airlines make hubs but you need the airport infrastructure to be able to have a hub. If you have 200 aircraft, you cannot have a hub except the airport infrastructure supports it. We discussed this with the Minister of Aviation and he took it to the president who is a progressively minded businessman and he approved it. That is why we are having the airport in Lagos, having to go down to bring up something that you can have a hub.
“We fly Douala, Monrovia, Freetown, Banjul, Accra and Abidjan. There was a time we took passengers from Douala who were going to Darka. When we got to Lagos, they were told to pay visa fees and you know that because they are not part of ECOWAS, so you pay about $400 visa fees before you enter Nigeria. Meanwhile, they were not going to Nigeria. They only transited through a Nigerian airport. But because the Nigerian airport has no transit facilities, they had to pay for a visa. You pass through immigration, you pass through COVID people. You pass through quarantine, Customs and all types of agencies, and then you come out from your arrival. You then go upstairs again to start checking in. Tell me if that person will fly your airline again to anywhere in the world.
“The Lagos airport has no transit facility and that is what FAAN is trying to do. I believe that in the next 22 months, this country will have a good airport that we will be proud of. We are doing London and Air Peace is flying to about nine countries in West Africa. I could not take them, bring them to Nigeria and take them out. Togo has no domestic operations. They only have one airport. But what Togo does is the convergence of passengers from everywhere. Then they export them from there to other countries. If we give Nigerian airlines the right infrastructure, believe me, Ethiopia and the rest will be a thing of the past in the next 10 years.”
An aviation expert, Amos Akpan, told Daily Sun that a hub is a deliberate policy implemented by the government in collaboration with aviation stakeholders. He said the government has to design and install minimal required basic airport infrastructure to provide seamless transfer for arrivals joining departing flights. “The government must ensure these infrastructures and facilities are world class and serviceable for users. This implies airlines’ flight schedules recognise and accommodate movement of passengers, baggage and cargo from arriving aircraft to departing aircraft,” he said.
On the sort of facilities that should be in a hub, Akpan said transit lounges and hotel has to be sighted within the airport, transit warehouse has to be built and designated as such, handling companies’ personnel have to be trained on transit operations, information dissemination apparatuses has to be designed and installed and mobility between the infrastructures within the various facilities has to be in place. He said the hub airport should have its own independent power plant for reliable power supply, constant availability of fuel, reliable high speed internet facilities and modern serviceable aeronautical infrastructures.
“Generally, the hub airport must be user friendly to attract airlines. The higher the frequency of flights from numerous countries into the hub airport, the more reassuring for the travelers that they will catch a connecting flight to their final destination. This is what Heathrow and Dubai have achieved. Ethiopia is deliberately achieving this status with a combination of investment in their airline – ET and their Bole airport,” he said.
Akpan noted that Nigeria already has the aircraft, passenger and cargo movement data to justify developing Lagos into a hub airport, but warned that success will require deliberate and consistent effort. “The simple questions to ask and provide answers are: What would attract more airlines into Lagos? What would make a traveler from Conakry or Kano decide to pass through Lagos on his or her way to China or Singapore? What would make an importer in Malabo or Kano route their cargo through Lagos airport?” he asked. According to him, buzzwords like “user friendly” and “world class” are important, but the real challenge lies in deliberately programming Lagos airport to achieve those standards.
Giving his appraisal of Nigeria’s aviation industry since independence, Akpan said: “In 65 years, our industry has made progress but let us watch the trend in other climes and aim a lot higher. We need to be in a hurry to catch up with the rest of the world. It has taken us 65 years to transact cashless in Lagos and Abuja airports only. I recommend the thinking pattern of our minister of internal affairs. We give deadlines to achieve milestones like self-check-in in the airports; like paperless cargo documentation processes.
Founder of the defunct ADC airlines, Capt. Augustine Okon, who was the keynote speaker at the 40th anniversary conference of the National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE) in Uyo last week, gave his own assessment of the state of Nigeria’s aviation from 1984 to 2025.
Capt. Okon, who worked with Nigerian Airways for many years before establishing ADC, said in 1984, the aviation industry in Nigeria was plagued by poor navigational and landing aids, with many airports ill-equipped to handle modern aircraft safely in adverse weather; Inadequate airport infrastructure like runways, terminal facilities, and communication systems which he said were all below global standards.
He also mentioned weak manpower development with little structured training beyond the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Zaria; Lack of diversity in aviation as general aviation, agricultural aviation, and recreational flying were almost non-existent. He said at the time, pilots were deeply dissatisfied; they wanted safe skies, modern equipment, and a professional environment where Nigerian aviation could thrive alongside global peers.
However, he said four decades later, there have been improvements but that progress has been uneven. In terms of navigational aids airport infrastructure, Okon said many airports now boast Instrument Landing Systems (ILS), radar coverage, and improved lighting, but that consistency remains an issue. “Weather monitoring and reporting are still inadequate, and infrastructure maintenance often lags international expectations. The gains of total radar coverage and improved navigational and approach aids are being lost to primitive, verbose procedural air traffic services that unnecessarily prolong approaches and congest frequencies,” he said.
On manpower development, Okon said the growth of training institutions has been encouraging but that however, the sector still struggles with underfunding, brain drain, and limited pathways for pilots and engineers to progress to global levels of certification and expertise.
He continued: “General aviation remains stunted. Agricultural aviation is far below potential. Flying clubs and recreational aviation struggle to exist, and sports and experimental aviation are almost absent. Nigeria’s airspace remains dominated by commercial and government aviation, leaving little room for the entrepreneurial growth seen in other nations. In essence, while we have moved forward, we have not moved far enough.”
Other challenges he said the industry still faces are issues like over taxation. He said the tax law exempts food, medicines and transportation from VAT and that all other modes of transportation are not taxed except domestic flights. “Inter African flights are grossly overtaxed. This works against the spirit of ECOWAS and the AU and discourages free trade and interconnections,” he said.
Okon further said that our enormous investment in total radar coverage of the country should result in less talk and minimal overload of the frequency with unnecessary housekeeping information which are in the flight plan, or having been given once need not be repeated again. “Radar control should also result in shorter routing and not make all flights undergo procedural routing as if there was no radar,” he said.
On aviation’s contribution to the GDP, he quipped: “Recent and ongoing studies by researchers of the University of Port Harcourt shows that the enormous investment by the government in aviation from 1960 to date has not resulted in a corresponding increase in GDP. We must reverse that trend or prepare to go extinct.”
Wins
One of the major wins for Nigeria aviation is the country’s compliance with the Cape Town Convention (CTC). For many years, global aviation companies blacklisted Nigeria for not complying with the ‘Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment’ and the ‘Protocol on Matters Specific to Aircraft Equipment’, which was concluded in Cape Town on November 16, 2001. The primary aim of both documents is to resolve the problem of obtaining opposable rights to aviation assets which includes airframes, aircraft engines and helicopters.
But Nigeria failed to comply with this agreement as some local operators had, in the past, breached it, making it difficult for lessors to have access to their aircraft leased by domestic airlines that default. This made the country’s compliance score dip below the required threshold, causing international lessors and companies to place restrictions on it and made it impossible for domestic airlines to access international aircraft leases.
But in September, Justice John Tsoho, Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, signed the Cape Town Convention (CTC) practice direction to enable domestic airline operators to access aircraft on dry lease. This development caused Nigeria to be removed from the watch list and the country’s global aviation compliance score saw a significant improvement in the CTC practice direction. In October this year, the Aviation Working Group (AWG) stated on its website that Nigeria’s score on the CTC Compliance Index had increased to 75.5%, placing the country in the ‘high category’, leading to renewed interest from aircraft leasing companies in doing business with Nigeria and a reduction in insurance premiums for local airlines. The amendment to Nigeria’s domestication of the CTC Protocol now empowers the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to release aircraft to lessors on demand when lessees default, without interference from court injunctions. This change has significantly restored confidence among international aircraft lessors dealing with Nigerian airlines.
Infrastructural improvement
There have been upgrades to airport infrastructure including the rehabilitation of Runway 18R at Lagos Airport, refurbishment of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport’s Wing-E Terminal, and the introduction of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses for passenger transport.
In August 2024, Nigeria signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Boeing covering training, technical support, and the development of local Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) capabilities. The Borno Airport has been elevated to international status while there have been signing of new bilateral air service agreements with countries such as the UAE, UK, Jamaica, Namibia, and Canada.
The NCAA launched a Consumer Protection E-Portal which automates complaint resolution processes by enabling passengers to directly submit complaints; tracks real-time airline performance, and gives access to case resolution data. The regulator also successfully re-certified Abuja and Lagos International Airports to ensure compliance with International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) standards.
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