ASRTI urges FAAN to honour agreements with concessionaires

AVIATION Safety Round Table Initiative (ASRTI), a non-governmental body consisting of different professional groups, has met with the management of Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and called for improved safety measures, revenue opportunity maximisation, passenger comfort, security and infrastructure standards improvement at airports across Nigeria, among other proposals.

After commending the Managing Director of FAAN, Mrs. Olubunmi Kuku, for her leadership’s efforts to improve the airports since she assumed office, the ASRTI team, led by its President, Air Commodore Demola Onitiju (Retd), made a case for enforcement of compliance with Service Level Agreements

(SLAS) signed between FAAN and concessionaires pat the airports, provision of better comfort for airport users, including the physically-challenged passengers, who require separate facilities to access the terminal lounge.

The body equally requested for regulation of concessionaires’ access to the newly commissioned terminals and a monitoring device to ensure that duty-free shop operators sell only what they were granted FAAN approval to sell at the airports.

Onitiju said: “In the interest of health and safety of travellers who are consumers and standard international best practices, it is important for FAAN to evolve some certification processes and establish who is selling what among the retail shop operators.”

He also used the opportunity to call for urgent tackling of the menace of rats at the new terminal of the Lagos airport, which constitutes a health hazard.

Also discussed at the meeting was the issue of establishing security fence at the airports in line with ICAO standards and the need to relocate the Lagos airport toll gate and have two, such that there will be an entry into and exit from the airport area.

He explained that those driving into the airport roads area would then be required to pay toll, but while exiting, they don’t pay and vice versa. This, ASRTI believes, would help FAAN revenue generation.