TheCable

The Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) says it lost N17.5 billion in aeronautic charges during the 23-week period that domestic and international flights were banned.

Nike Aboderin, FAAN director of finance and accounts, disclosed this during a virtual meeting with aviation stakeholders on Tuesday.

In March, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) projected that the COVID-19 pandemic could cost Nigeria’s aviation industry as much as $434 million and 22,000 job cuts.

Speaking on the implications of the pandemic on FAAN, Aboderin said the agency also lost N1.4 billion of non-aeronautic charges between April and June 2020.

Aboderin explained that compared to 2019, only 8.7 percent of the agency’s non-aeronautical revenue charges were collected from April to June 2020.

She said that as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, FAAN customers were not only defaulting on payment for services rendered to them but that there is an upsurge in requests for payment suspension, deferral and waivers.

Aboderin added that 87 percent of 2020 budgeted overhead cost was wiped out in six months with up to 95 percent decline in weekly revenues.

Also speaking at the virtual meeting, Hamisu Yadudu, managing director of FAAN, said the agency lost over 90 percent of its internally generated revenue (IGR) in the last six months.

“In spite of the drastic drop in revenue, FAAN has managed to ensure that all its local airports have commenced domestic operations having met the requirements by the presidential task force (PTF) on COVID-19, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and other regulatory bodies and have been issued clearance to reopen,” Yadudu said.

“Plans are also at an advanced stage to ensure that the international airports are set for re-opening on August 29, 2020, as announced by the minister of aviation as we will be seeing during the course of this meeting. All these have come at a huge cost to the authority with little or no cash inflow.”