Airport Concessioning’ll Turn Gateways Around -Sirika

Following the reactions
trailing the alledged plan to concession the major airport in Nigeria, the Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, has said that concessioning of airport, especially the four big ones, will not only present excellent passenger experience, but will turn the nation’s gateways around in one year.
The minister who disclosed this while interacting with stakeholders of the aviation industry in Lagos, said the best way to attract passengers, investors and turn the airports into hubs as they should have been is to concession them.
He said most airports such as Heathrow and some in the United Arabs Emirates that the world talks about are not fully owned by government, but are concesioned out in order to get excellent results.
According to him, government no longer has money to invest into public property such as airport, but will not also hand them totally to private hands in order to ensure operating standard.
“Government can no longer put money into public property, the best way is to concession them but we will not privatise them because we do not want to leave them off, totally. There is no other way around it, it is concession.
“Aviation is a money spinner but we must do it right, we must concession the airports, starting with the four big ones in order to grow the sector. We cannot create a hub from the airports as they are, the wide-bodied aircraft cannot be handled by these airports, the atmosphere within the airports are not ideal, it is extremely difficult to attract passenger,” the minister stated.
Sirika, however, reaffirmed the focus of the APC government at the centre which he said is on promoting, to nurse, sustain and develop business, but not to kill jobs and close down shops.