FAAN woos private investors to boost airport projects

DETERMINED to boost the state of infrastructure across the country’s airports, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has started wooing private investors for partnership, to make the move a reality.

According to the Managing Director of FAAN, Saleh Dunoma, some of the new infrastructure, which FAAN requires partnership with the private sector, included the construction and management of hangar facilities and well as fixed base operations (FBOs); construction and management of hospitality facilities, but not limited to hotels.

Other areas the organisation required private partnership were construction and management of automated car parks; development of terminal buildings; construction of runways, taxiways and aprons; construction and management of helipads and construction and management of independent power plants (IPPs) and aviation fuel depot facility.

FAAN is also calling on the private sector to partner with it in the construction and management of cargo air services for perishable agricultural produce.

This was as Dunoma declared that the country’s aviation sector contributes over $1 billion to the Nigerian economy annually and creates more than 150,000 jobs.

According to Dunoma, despite the recent decision of the Federal Government to concession airport facilities, FAAN had adopted the system of partnering with the private sector, a strategy that had become inevitable, given the large number of international airlines that now operates in the country.

Dunoma explained that for third party businesses, FAAN would provide land or developed aviation and non aeronautical facilities, under appropriate business and financial arrangements, in line with the agency’s commercial and investment policy guidelines for leases and rentals.