In the wake of current instability in Nigeria’s airline sector, not one Nigerian international airport made it to the top ten of the best airports in Africa. In a poll conducted by airline tech website, sleepingairports.net, the Murtala Mohammed International Airport and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport both missed out on the list of top airports on the continent as voted by travellers. The failure would not come as a surprise to anyone who has been following the trend of activities in Nigerian airline sector over the past two years.
South Africa’s Cape Town International Airport was ranked best in a poll judged on parameters which include cleanliness, comfort, service timeliness, and security. Kigali International airport was voted second best in Africa and best in East Africa by the travellers. Mauritius’ Port Louis International Airport in 3rd, Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport in 4th place and Algiers’ Houari Boumediene International Airport in Algeria complete the top five of the ranking.
The parameters upon which the ranking is based leaves one in no doubt of the impossibility of Nigerian airports making the list. Out of the five parameters – cleanliness, comfort, service, security, customer relations – upon which the ranking was based, Nigerian airports will most likely only attain the pass mark for security test, failing terribly in others. This explains why the five international airports in Nigeria only average about 15 million travellers yearly.
The failure to make this ranking comes on the back of the recent seizure of Arik Airline’s operations by AMCON and the move by the federal government to close the Abuja International airport due to ongoing rehabilitation of the runways. While the physical state of the airports is yet deteriorating, lacking renovation for many years, the quality of services is extremely poor. Nigerian airport staffers are guilty of many things, among them is poor customer relations.
The poorly maintained cooling system at several of these ever busy airports has resulted in a number of passengers collapsing under enormous heat. This explains why travellers from other countries privy of this state will try as much as possible to avoid flying through Nigerian airports. Poor security at our airports, which has recorded a number of cases of stowaways in recent years coupled with electrical and lighting issues especially at nights, make our airports and by extensions the passengers terribly exposed and vulnerable to any form of attack. A traveller who has knowledge of all these would gladly avoid our airports as long as there are other options.
As a matter of fact, the internationality of Nigerian airports does not go beyond the “international” in the names. And as long as these problems facing the airline sector are not addressed, Nigerian will remain out of the league of top countries in the airline business.
