FAAN Targets N30bn Annual Revenue
The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has said it aims to increase its revenue from the current budget of over N20bn annually to N30bn.
The agency which is managing about 22 airports in the country said that it had taken steps to actualise this goal, by setting up a committee to map out plans to boost revenue generation for the agency, especially from the non-aeronautical areas.
It noted that for it to be able to pay overheads, salaries of its huge personnel and still have funds to maintain the airports, it must look for ingenious ways to earn more revenue.
Therefore, he disclosed that the agency which has received approval would soon increase passenger service charge from the current N1000 to N2500 for domestic passengers and from $50 to $100 for international passengers.
A source told THISDAY that the agency hopes to earn more revenue from the new airport terminals in Abuja and Port Harcourt and expressed the optimism that in no distant time, the new facilities in Lagos and Kano would be completed and this would boost FAAN’s revenue.
In the past four years FAAN has engaged in massive recruitment of personnel due to political pressures.
From about 5,000 staff, the agency, a current workforce of 7,000.
According to the source, if the organisation does not increase revenue, it would not be able to pay salaries to its personnel.
The Managing Director of FAAN, Saleh Dunoma, said that the agency was doing everything possible to increase its revenue.
He noted that in addition to increased personnel, FAAN would have to spend more on aviation security in the procurement of equipment, guns and others, as it aims to equipment its security personnel, as endorsed by the federal government.
To actualise this goal, FAAN has raised a committee which would look at various opportunities available, especially in non-aeronautical sources to boost its revenue, as the management said it would exploit every possibility available to ensure that more revenues are generated.
Dunoma, said that it was high time airport authorities in the continent diversified their revenue generations away from aeronautic to non-aeronautic, stressing that other airport managers across the world had already keyed into this.
He insisted that the committee, which he is the chairman, consisted of relevant directorates and departments responsible for revenue generation for FAAN and would come out with a roadmap to enhance revenues for the agency.
He declared that FAAN as an agency could not be left behind in the development of its airport infrastructure, stressing that the only way to achieve this was for it to diversify its revenue generation and tap into the myriad of opportunities in the system.
He explained further that apart from Nigeria, other airport authorities across the continent were also deliberating on how to increase their non-aeronautical revenue services, which he said formed the theme of this year’s Airports Council International (ACI) held in Egypt.
“What we intend to do is to diversify our revenue sources. In Africa, we have not tapped into non-aeronautical sources and we are encouraging African airports
to look at non-aeronautical revenue sources of revenue because aeronautical sources of revenues have limitations; they are highly dependent on flight operations.
“The non-aeronautical revenues are being developed so much that they can be in pari-passu with the aeronautical sources of revenues. This is what we want African airports to develop. Some papers were presented to guide African airports to develop that area.
“As a matter of fact, I just finished a meeting with my team. I set up a team on revenue generation and this team is chaired by me. It is very sensitive to the survival of African airports especially FAAN. We started the meeting today (Monday) and we will continue to meet every week until we get to where we want to be.
“We have not come up with a target yet, but the committee will come up with that. There are lots of departments involved, including engineering and commercial. By the time we develop some projects, we will have revenue targets that we want to achieve. This will be done by the committee.”
