Business
NAMA Pledges Security, Protection Of Airport Facilities
The Nigeria Airspace
Management Agency (NAMA) has pledged to ensure better security and protection of the nation’s airport facilities in a bid to enhance safety standards.
Speaking to newsmen in Lagos on Tuesday, the Acting Managing Director, NAMA, Mr Emma Anasi, said that the agency would collaborate with the Runway Safety Teams to facilitate that priority, attentions are given to passengers security and safety at the nation’s airports.
Anasi said that NAMA has recently inaugurated Runway Safety Teams in the country describing such inauguration as another giant step towards enhancing safety of air travel particularly along the airside where the most critical phases of flight take place.
The NAMA boss said that runway safety teams are prerequisites and indispensable requirements and indispensable requirements for certification by the international Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) of any nation’s airports.
He said that runway safety standard rules assist the Agency the ability to closely monitor and give prompt attention to safety issues arising from the air side like the derubberisation of the tarmac.
Anasi added that the agency whose mandate borders on safety of air navigation would partner and support runway safety teams to realize their nation’s airports.
Meanwhile, the National Bureau of Statistic (NBS) has rated the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMA) as the busiest airport in Nigeria between the second halves of 2014 and 2015 both in terms of the number of travelers and aircraft.
The NBS in a statement in Lagos said MMA accounted for 36.5 per cent of domestic passengers 69.2 per cent of international passengers, 89.5 per cent of cargo movement and 44.9 per cent of mail movement.
The bureau further stated that in the third quarter of 2015 the total number of passengers to travel through Nigeria airports were 3,824,319 which represent an increase of 299,533 (8.5 per cent) relative to the number in the second quarter.
The NBS reports also stated that Abuja domestic Airport was the second largest in terms of passengers traffic, increased its share of passengers travel relative in 2014.
NBS said the airport recorded the largest year-one-year incrase in passenger numbers in the third quarter of 2015 with an increased of 116,350 passengers under the period of review.