Director-general of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Muhtar Usman, has reiterated the readiness of the country’s aviation industry to meet the projected boost in air passenger traffic by 2030.
This is as Nigeria has been called upon to take the lead in the continent’s aviation industry in order to help contribute to the development on the continent.
Speaking at a seminar organised by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), Monday at the NCAA’s annex office at the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos, with the theme ‘High Level Workshop on Global Air Navigation Plan,’ Usman said Nigeria was well positioned to contribute to the expected surge in global air travel by 2030.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) and ICAO had projected that the global air travel would double by 2030, and called on all countries around the world to prepare for the increase.
Global air passenger travel in 2016 was 3.7 billion, according to IATA. The traffic rose 6.3 percent when compared with 2015.
This strong performance was well ahead of the 10 years average annual growth rate of 5.5 percent. Capacity rose 6.2 percent compared with 2015, pushing the load factor up 0.1 percentage points to a record full-year average high of 80.5 percent.
With the projection of IATA, global air travel is expected to grow to 7.4 billion passenger traffic by 2030.
According to Usman, Nigeria within the period will have increased its infrastructure and its regulations, stressing that with this plan, the country will not be left behind.
Also speaking at the occasion, Stephen Cremer, director of Air Navigation Bureau, ICAO, said through the seminar, ICAO would get to know the prospects and the challenges of Nigeria towards the global 2030 global air traffic projection.
Cremer said Nigeria as a leader in the continent needed to take the economic development in Africa, stressing that safety and regulations tools in place required improvement, but observed that the country had improved on the accident and incident records in the past years.
He added: “We want to share our views in a way that it is meaningful to you. There is no any country in the world that can say it has all the navigational equipment. We have challenges everywhere, which are not unique, but the way we approach them is what matters.”
Also, Prosper Zo’o Minto’o, deputy regional director, ICAO, said Nigeria was considered as a leader on the continent in terms of its economic and aviation potential.
Zo’o Minto’o declared that the global aviation industry was at a stage it needed to modernise the system and Nigeria had been a pioneer in the introduction of satellite technology in the region since early 1990s.
