Aviation Ministry Awaits Buhari’s Approval for National Carrier

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News Tuesday, November 3rd, 2015

Ayodele Afolabi, Abuja

The Ministry of Aviation has said that the committee set up to work out the possibility of setting up a National Carrier had concluded its work and that her ministry had submitted the report to President Muhammadu Buhari for approval.

“We are waiting for President Buhari’s approval so that we can take the draft bill to the Federal Executive Council once it is inaugurated. Everything about the project is ready” the ministry stated.

The Ministry also lamented that most of the facilities and equipment at the Nation’s airports are obsolete

The Managing Director of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria ( FAAN), Mr Saleh Dunoma stated this at the Senate session.

Dunoma said quite a number of the equipment were acquired over 30 years ago while responding to questions from senators on reasons for the rating of the nation’s airports as the worst in the country by an international aviation agency.

He lamented that the equipment and facilities at the airports like the generators, air conditioners, elevators and conveyor belts, were not functioning as expected again because the agency could not afford modern ones to replace old ones, citing an instance when FAAN management invited the manufacturers of a giant generators installed at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos from Germany recently to help fix the faulty power plant.

He said the manufacturers said it would be difficult to fix it because the brand was no longer in circulation and even expressed surprised that the generator, which was as old as the airport itself was still functional, because the parts were no longer in stock.