FAAN Prepares Two Major Airports for Ranking, Certification

Chinedu Eze

The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has in line with the International Civil

Aviation Organisation (ICAO) regulation, has embarked on infrastructural upgrade of Nigeria’s major airports and technical manpower development under the new Managing Director, Mrs Olubunmi Kuku.

This is in preparation of the certification of the airports by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and to improve the ranking of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos and the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja for improvement in their rankings in Africa and in the world.

Currently Lagos airport is number eight while Abuja airport is number 12 among the busiest airports in Africa, but the new management of FAAN has vowed to push the two airports to the first five on the continent.

So, the agency is striving to meet stringent conditions stipulated ICAO and NCAA to ensure that the airports come out successful in the next ICAO audit.

Reacting to what Mrs. Kuku has achieved so far, the former spokesman of FAAN, Yakubu Dati, said that she is steadily transforming the airports in a commendable manner.

“Since she shattered the glass ceiling to emerge the first female Managing Director of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mrs Olubunmi Kuku has taken bold steps to mainstream the economic reforms of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu led administration in the aviation sector.

“She introduced a number of initiatives that are bound to improve passenger traffic in the sector with accompanying increase in revenue; non-aeronautical revenue and overall positive performance that will  contribute a significant chunk to the the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) figure of N2.43 trillion internal revenue generated by the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in 2023,” Dati said.

He explained that the Bola Tinubu administration has left no one in doubt that it is no longer going to be business as usual but that