Kudos to NAMA as diversion of Abuja flights into Kaduna commences

The successful commencement of Abuja airport flights diversion to the Kaduna airport to give room for repairs on the runway at the federal capital airport, has no doubt doused tension amongst the different stakeholders.

Prior to last week when the flight diversions was kicked off by the Ethiopian Airlines and subsequently by the ever present domestic carriers, a lot of questions were raised on the state of landing aids at the Kaduna airport.

While some even argued that the airport was not capable of handling the Abuja bound flights   in view of the state of the airport, others said the navigational aids at the airport were obsolete.

Well, against all odds, all the genuine and fake fears raised then have now been laid to rest as the doubting ‘Thomasses’ have been proved wrong to an extent.

To ensure flight operations are seamless within the six weeks period the upgrade of the Abuja airport runway will last, all the relevant aviation authorities led by the minister of State for aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika worked round the clock in ensuring all the required facilities were in place.

The role played by the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), the authority saddled with the responsibility of making flight operations safe and secured through the navigational aids installed at the Kaduna airport just like other airports across the country contributed immensely to the success at the Kaduna airport.

Prior to the commencement of the Abuja bound flights to Kaduna airport, NAMA led by its managing director, Captain Fola Akinkuotu had led his team to supervise the installation of navigational facilities at the Kaduna airport.

Ahead of the March 8 closure of the Nnamdi Azikiwe Internatinal Airport, Abuja and in a bid to ensure accuracy, reliability and efficiency of facilities at the Kaduna airport, NAMA had rounded off the routine calibration of the navigational equipments installed at the airport which include: the Very High Omnidirectional Radio Range/Distance Measuring Equipment (VOR/DME) and the flight commissioning of the Instrument Landing System/Distance Measuring Equipment (ILS/DME).

The component parts of the facilities which include Two VOR transmitters, two DMEs co-located with the VORs, two localizer transmitters, two glideslope transmitters and two DMEs co-located with the glideslope all passed the flight calibration test which was handled by Omni-Blue Aviation Ltd along with their technical partners (FCSL of United Kingdom) in collaboration with NAMA engineers who carried out the installation, alignment and parameter adjustment during the exercise.

The installation of the navigational equipments were carried out by trained engineers from the agency led by the managing director and his Director of Safety Electronics and Electrical services, Engineer Umar Farouk.

To prove that the Kaduna airport was adequately ready to accommodate all flights into the Kaduna airport, Akinkuotu who coincidentally is an engineer and pilot during a tour of the navigational facilities installed at the airport, took time off to explain some of the installations and their functions and how they help guarantee those safe flights.

Before the commencement of the Abuja bound flights to Kaduna, all the airlines particularly the foreign carriers had been invited by the minister of state for aviation to carry out inspections on the navigational aids at the airport as a way of showing that there was no cause for alarm.

Ethiopian Airlines after the tour was said to have attested to the readiness of the airport for flights a reason which was attributed to the airline’s decision to become the first to operate its Dreamliner plane there.

With all the navigational aids at the Kaduna airport by NAMA, flight operations into and out of the airport in the next six weeks and even after will never remain the same because of the attention given onto it.

It is however hoped that the agency will also extend the same zeal to other airports by ensuring all the required aids needed are put in place.

As expected in other climes, the proactive response of the NAMA management through the physical presence of all relevant officials including: the air traffic controllers, the engineers, aeronautic information officers really paid off.

The good thing about the commencement of flights into Kaduna airport with every other logistics put on ground to take care of passengers is that it has gone a long way to show that the airport is not what people made it to look like.