Nine years after 13 airports were designated for cargo operations in Nigeria, only five have facilities to process cargoes for import and export, BusinessDay’s investigations show.
In 2013, the federal government, through the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) designated 13 airports as perishable cargo airports in a bid to transform the aviation sector into a major revenue earner for the country.
Cities prioritised to host perishable cargo terminals were Abuja, Akure, Calabar, Ilorin, Jalingo, Jos, Kano, Lagos, Makurdi, Minna, Owerri, Port Harcourt, and Uyo.
The only functional cargo airports in the country are Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kano, Abuja and Owerri airports.
According to standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization, an ideal cargo airport should have a cargo shed to house cargoes coming in and out of the country; a long and durable runway to accommodate big cargo aircraft; Instrument Landing System for night operations, and fire-fighting vehicles. But these are absent in many of the airports.
FAAN is expected to provide sufficient airport apron where aircraft are parked, unloaded or loaded, refuelled, or boarded; good link roads between the airports and the adjoining arterial roads; screening machines, X-ray machine, quarantine equipment and explosives trace detectors.
Manpower is also compulsory for cargo operations to take off. These include personnel of Immigration, Customs, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, and quarantine officers.
BusinessDay’s findings show that Akwa Ibom Airport in Uyo, the state capital, currently does not have a cargo shed and as such, no government official is assigned to the airport to monitor the cargo inflow or outflow.
The Uyo airport has just one runway and it is not long enough for big cargo aircraft to navigate. The airport also lacks night landing aids for aircraft to take off and land at night.
Read also: How Nigeria can enlarge cargo base through airports
There are currently no cargo facilities at Calabar, Ilorin, Jalingo, Jos, Makurdi and Minna airports.
Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kano, Abuja and Owerri airports, which are the functional cargo airports, also have challenges affecting seamless importation and exportation of cargoes.
Seyi Adewale, aviation expert and chief executive officer at Mainstream Cargo Limited, said that the Abuja airport had been completed but not yet inaugurated or in use.
According to him, a major factor will be for the two major ground handling companies in the airport to relocate and position their cargo and aircraft handling equipment therein as soon as possible.
Adewale said the cargo warehouse in Port Harcourt airport is very huge but underutilised because many of the cargo airlines have stopped flying directly to the airport.
He said this had made importers to freight via the seaport and sea freight appeared to be growing in Port Harcourt because of this. “Importantly too, many of the oil and gas companies appear not to be carrying out large transactions and/or importation pre-pandemic. The main drivers of air freight at this airport are mostly the oil and gas-related businesses,” he said.
According to him, Owerri airport’s cargo warehouse may not fully realise its potential until the agricultural value chain is well developed in respect of growing agricultural produce that meet international standards and are traceable to the farmlands.
Kano has a good cargo warehouse but the goods coming via Kano airport usually do not require such huge spaces. The cargoes are usually cleared upon arrival due to their nature and mostly by active traders, Adewale said.
He said the downturn in the economy could have affected this thriving market from North Africa and the pandemic has added to the woes of these cargo airports.
BusinessDay’s findings show that only Allied Air attempts to offer this limited service in firm contracts as commercial airlines normally do not offer much space in their aircraft belly to take much cargo due to their weight and balance capacity.
Ikechi Uko, convener of Aviation and Cargo Conference (CHINET), told BusinessDay that Nigeria has designated many airports as cargo airports, yet most of the airports are not functional.
Uko said most of the cargo airports do not have warehouses, cargo sheds, no cargo processing areas and the runways are not large enough to carry big cargo aircrafts.
He hinted that these are part of the issues that would be discussed at the 2022 CHINET event because cargo export is part of the ways to address the current devaluation of naira.
Uko said: “We find that there is no enterprise plan for these airports and no process to import or export through these airports. There is nothing on ground at these airports to say they are cargo. A cargo aircraft moves mainly at night, so that distribution can commence in the morning but most of the cargo designated airports are sunset airports.
“There is no national cargo master plan. So, part of what we will achieve at CHINET this year is to initiate the discussion about creating a cargo master plan for Nigeria, just as they have done with our ports. Something similar should be created for our airports as well.”
Adewale said for cargo airports to become functional, there is a need for the government to incentivise new and expiring airliners to invest in cargo airlines and the development and optimisation of agriculture value chain to deliver qualitative and internationally marketable agricultural produce and products.
He added: “Government could choose to be an off-taker of these agricultural produce, products or semi-finished commodities for local and international markets. More mechanised farming should be introduced by state governments with deliberate actions to attract foreign investors into this market like it once was in Zimbabwe.
“The farmer-herder crises need to be either tamed or stopped outright. Each section, state or zone of the country must be deliberate in what they want to achieve. For example, if the textile market begins to thrive again in the north, this will have a direct impact on international, regional and domestic cargo airports.”
He stressed that without the above actions, the cargo warehouses and airports will just be wasting assets.
