The minister of aviation, Stella Oduah-Ogiemwonyi has charged the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to meet the challenges of the 21st century so as to remain competitive or it would go out of business.
The minister handed down the challenge in Lagos after she completed a facility tour of FAAN facilities at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport.
The minister stated that the dynamics of present-day air transportation had changed remarkably hence the need for FAAN to do an overhaul of its operations.
“FAAN must change its attitude to work; must know that the dynamics of air transportation have changed and you must therefore change with the times,” she declared.
Oduah-Ogiemwonyi urged the agency to clean up the rot at the airports, upgrade facilities, embrace and adopt new technologies and always put customer satisfaction at the centre of all its activities.
“It is no longer going to be business as usual. We must ensure that for whatever we have for now, we must make it look better…we must factor in customer service, customer comfort and customer security.
It has to be customer-centred all the way if you intend to remain in business,” she stated.
She wondered what FAAN would become if the new terminal operated by Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Ltd (BASL) at the local wing of the Lagos airport were replicated at other airports in the country.
Oduah therefore urged the FAAN management to alter its thinking towards investment through the production of a strategic roadmap which must contain short, medium, and long-term deliverables.
Thereafter, the minister who pledged to help drive the road map once it is presented and adopted, turned her attention to the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) and counselled it to look inwards to generate its revenue instead of waiting for handouts from the federal government.
She also directed that immediate steps be taken for the implementation of a single Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria instead of the prevailing situation in which different radars cover different parts of the country.
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