IN the outgoing year, there is no doubt the aviation sector witnessed tremendous developments made available through some steps taken by the different principal actors led by the minister of aviation and aerospace development, Festus Keyamo and complemented by the Chief Executive Officers of the agencies and other relevant entities.
In the outgoing year, while the minister made some giant efforts in his ability to go all the whole hog to convince the international investors to change their hitherto negative perceptions about doing business in the sector as witnessed in the readiness of aircraft leasing companies, aircraft manufacturers, insurance companies among others to renew their business trust with Nigerian airlines and the agencies, the resilience and the professionalism demonstrated by the CEOs in their various endeavours contributed to the growth recorded in the outgoing year.
In 2025, the sector is expected to bask in the glories it recorded in the outgone year, while expanding the frontiers of success. There is the expected positivity as stakeholders are expressing their optimism about how the good transformative strategies witnessed in the outgone year will up the ante for a better performance in the New Year. Airlines such as Air Peace, United Nigeria among others are expected to continued their dominance while their chief executives, Mr. Allen Onyema and Prof. Obiora Okonkwo are expected to roll out further initiatives to lift the nation’s aviation sector to greater heights.
The minister of aviation, Festus Keyamo is also expected to continue to impressive run he had kickstarted, leading to the country returning to its pride of place in the sector in 2024.
According to the key players, there are some Chief Executives whose policies in 2025 may greatly contribute to shaping or reshaping the sector in view of their performances in year 2024.
Top on the list of those to look up to as a major harbinger of great transformation whose policies may greatly help to reshape the sector in 2025 is the present managing director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mrs. Olubunmi Kuku, who coincidentally became the first female to not only head FAAN but also the first to reach the pinnacle of the topmost hierarchy of one of the aviation agencies.
Looking up to the FAAN MD in 2025, a former General Manager of Public Affairs of FAAN and a former Commissioner for Information and later Commissioner for Land and Survey, Plateau State, Yakubu Dati, following the achievements of Kuku within the one year of her appointment, there is a greater assurance that the airports across the country under her supervision are heading in the right direction in 2025.
According to Dati, because the FAAN MD possesses the skill and knowledge not only to fly the plane to its desired destination but to land it safely, she has positively impacted the aviation sector and is strategically reengineering it into a commercially viable entity in the new year.
For a member of the Aviation Round Table (ART) and the director at Zenith Travels, Mr. Olumide Ohunayo; “I’m looking at the acting Director General of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Captain Chris Najomo and the MD FAAN, Mrs. Olubunmi Kuku who have taken some strategic steps in 2024 which if they build upon will help benefit the aviation sector. I am happy that those who came back to the country made possible comments about what they saw at the airports compared to what they saw the last time they visited. They commented about a lot of improvement they saw and also we can see that airlines licenses are coming up, NCAA is coming up with stricter measures for airlines and if we have all those things captured, and the trajectory of putting all the staff together first which is what we are seeing in NCAA, Najomo is pulling his staff together, emboldening them and strengthening them to do their duties, I expect that this will translate to our retaining our certification and also propel the agency to be more efficient in its service delivery to the aviation community.
“The MD FAAN’s boldness in curbing touting and addressing issues ‘like good morning and how is your weekend’ at the airports and also not just looking at the FAAN workers but also every other agency that is present at the airports. Those airports belong to FAAN and because they belong to FAAN, Kuku must work together with others in 2025 to ensure that passengers enjoy seamless travels. I must congratulate the two and I see them reshaping the sector in the new year,” he said.
An aviation security expert and the CEO of Centurion Aviation Security, Group Captain John Ojikutu, retired, though declared that he had not seen much difference in efforts of the different agencies to support commercial aviation services in the past but focusing on FAAN, he expressed the optimism that FAAN under Abuja in the new year is capable of taking some giant strides.
His words: “As much as I see FAAN taking strides different from the others, there is the need for FAAN to understand too that the standard it wants to achieve must be the global standards and practices. For example, the issue bothering on Aviation Security is beyond her. Airport Security is an Element of the Aviation Security which also is an Element of the National Security. She must find a way of taking the issue before the responsible authorities on Aviation Security and National Security. There are multiple Security forces in our Airports and multiple administration, control and command.
“Should anything go wrong with the security of the airport who is to be held accountable? She cannot get it solved alone. Not her and not the Minister but the Aviation Security Authority and the National Security Council, not Civil Aviation Authority nor the Minister. ICAO is interested in how this is resolved in compliance to Annex 17. 3.1.6. Political interests have been making it very difficult for those in the administration of our government and the management of the agencies to concession the airports essentially the non-Aeronautical services in compliance with the Privatisation, Commercialisation and Concession Act of 2000. For as long as we shy away from this global practices we cannot progress same way we cannot progress if we fail to establish National Flag Carriers as against the political office holder’s interests in a National Carrier and the private airlines operators for designation on the Bilateral Air Service Agreements (BASA) routes.”
A renowned international labour leader, Comrade Olayinka Abioye favoured the choice of the FAAN MD coupled with her achievements in year 2024 as someone to look up to in 2025.
According to Abioye: “Mrs. Olubunmi Kukus ascension to office as the first female Managing Director CEO of FAAN was a clear departure from the norm and she has honestly proved cynics wrong in all ramifications by her sheer audacity, purpose-driven focus to re-engineer and reposition FAAN as a responsive, accessible, viable and sustainable enterprise where people are number one.
“One striking factor that I noticed is her passion for workers’ well-being, and any employer who puts the well-being and happiness of its workers above all things has succeeded already. The holy books told us, show me a happy people and I will show you a good leader. Apparently understanding this doctrine, Mrs. Kuku has endeared herself to her employees so much that they “flow” together in decision making and implementation.
The union leader who however drew the attention of Kuku to some pertinent issues requiring her focus in 2025, declared: “I would love to recommend that efforts must be geared towards the eradication of touting and other anti-social activities; these irresponsible acts must be eliminated or reduced to its barest minimum, in collaboration with the office of the National Security Adviser. I believe that the number of military personnel in our airports are too many and cumbersome to manage.
“A drastic reduction and reengineering of their modus operandi is required for effective operations and passenger facilitation since it has been established over time that many of these personnel are actually part of the problems of our airports.
There should be constant dialogue among and between airline operators and stakeholders on mutually beneficial business relationship lest the airline operators kill the industry with high airfares and sundry unfair labour practices which tends to create avoidable tensions.
“For more security measures, I advocate for a review of the current operational manual of the Aviation Security Directorate. For many years, personnel in that directorate were made to overwork outside the purview of the law with no compensation at all for working more than the required hours daily and monthly. This must stop in order to give room for improvement in their service delivery and further create job opportunities for Nigerians.
“For FAAN to live up to its billings, the powerhouse of FAAN is its Engineering Directorate where you have Civil/Building, Electrical/Electronics, etc. If more attention is paid to the Directorate and personnel are encouraged and motivated, most jobs given out as contracts will be reduced because these FAAN personnel are great at their jobs but contracting out their jobs has almost killed their morale. There is no job they cannot handle.
“As they say, good soup costs money and as you lay your bed, so you lie on it. FAAN has whatever it takes to excel in its business development drive in the new year, but only if it makes itself attractive to investors, dealing with them transparently and avoid legal tangles as we have seen in the past.”
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