By Lawani Mikairu

LAGOS— Aviation stakeholders, weekend, said the Federal Government’s plan to concession four viable major airports in Abuja, Lagos, Kano and Port Harcourt, will help make the airports rank among the best in the world in terms of facilities.

This came as members of the Air Transport Service Senior Staff Association, ATSSAN, and the National Union of Air Transport Employees, NUATE,  vowed to resist the plan, saying, if necessary, the workers will mobilize and buy over the airports themselves.

The author of “Nigerian Aviation Fact Book,” Mike Chikeka, said it had become impossible for government to continue to fund airport development, noting that airport facilities would become obsolete and possibly jeopardise safety if the private sector is not allowed to rescue the sector.

Speaking on behalf of the workers, weekend in Lagos on the concessioning plan, Assistant General Secretary of NUATE, Mr. Olayinka Abioye, said government was not putting the interest of the workers into consideration and threatened that the workers would resist the plan to concession the airports.

He recalled that when the defunct Nigeria Airways was liquidated, workers were left to die without their pay off or their pensions which rose to over N72 billion.

It will be recalled that the federal government said it has in its initial plan the concessioning of the four major airports in the country because of the current state of the nation’s economy which has made it difficult for it to fund the development of airport facilities. So it is inviting the private sector to invest in the growth of the facilities through Public, Private Partnership (PPP).

On the need for concessioning , Chikeka said “We have also established a fact that government has continued to struggle with ensuring the operational viability of these airports rather than both operational and profitability of same.  In the end, it is almost unattainable for government to run a profitable airport. Sadly, too, government funding continues to shrink year after year and we cannot wait for a complete collapse of our system before something is done.”