By Chuks Okoh
The Airspace Manager in charge of Port Harcourt International Airport in Nigeria’s Oil rich Niger Delta, Mr. Onwuakpa Marcel has said the Radar system was working perfectly making it capable of capturing aircrafts from 150 nautical miles on secondary target.
Speaking on the operations in the region, Mr. Onwuakpa explained that with the radar (TRACON) on board, air traffic control has become seamless with targets getting easier to identify.
According to the ASM, aircraft separation has become very easy, congestions reduced while it has also become economical to airlines as it saves time and money for them.
Mr. Onwuakpa who did not subscribe to the privatization of Air Traffic Control in the country as a result of Safety concern said ATC was more of a security job.
“It may be highly impossible to privatize ATC in Nigeria because it is more of a security job”
He urged the government to address the shortage of ATC manpower in the system adding that they were gross inadequate to control with the system.
Mr. Onwuakpa lamented the outage of public power at the airport in the past three months saying that it has become the main problem that has affected their equipment.
The ASM who commended the NAMA management for the provision of generating sets to power its equipment regretted the high expenditure in the purchase of diesel for them.
Mr. Onwuakpa while saying that the country’s ATC has come of age in terms of maintaining international best practices advised airlines to contribute to NAMA’s seamless air traffic control by acquiring aircraft that are standard fitted with gadgets.
In a related development, the Airspace Manager for Sam Mbakwe airport, Owerri, Mr. Igwebuike Denwigwe has described the high rate of running generating plants to boost power production describing it as unprofitable.
Mr Denwigwe explained that the airport with about nine flights daily depended largely on generating plants to run its equipment. With four air traffic controllers daily at the airport, the ASM said there was no problem with the airspace.
Mr. Denwigwe disclosed that the system will be too tedious for ATC’s to cope with when the airport commences 24 hours operation as a result of manpower shortage and lack of accommodation within the airport for its staff.
He urged airspace users to pay for services provided for them by NAMA to enable the agency render more services adding that it costs the agency huge amount to provide services to them.
PHIA Manager Decries High Cost of Running Generating Sets
Meanwhile,the high cost of running generating sets to provide electricity for the Port International Harcourt Airport (PHIA) is now a source of worry to the management of the airport.
Mrs. Ebele Okoye general manager south south/south and east of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria. (FAAN) has disclosed that a total of 4 trucks of 33, 000 litres each of diesel were used monthly to power generating plants at the airport.
According to Mrs. Okoye, the absence of reliable public power source has led to the airport depending 100% on generating plants which has left the airport with little or no resources to run the airport especially with the high cost of diesel.
She explained that the airport depended solely on secondary power source as against the primary source of power.
On cargo development, She announced that the management of the airport was embarking on home delivery of cargo in conjunction with an independent company adding that cargo has not been fully utilized.
Mrs. Okoye said as part of the airports means of generating revenue, a new toll gate will soon be erected in conjunction with the Rivers State government with terms of agreement.
She noted that funding has been the greatest challenge in the day to day running of the airport.
Mrs. Okoye urged airline operators and passengers to bear with them as a result of the ongoing work at the airport adding that it will be in their benefit at the end of the exercise.
