More and more people are flying into and out of Nigeria

The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has disclosed that the number of air travellers at all airports in the country witnessed a “significant” growth in the first and second quarters of 2009, when compared to same period for 2008.

The authority, over the weekend, at its headquarters in Lagos, disclosed that the latest traffic figure shows a 17.2 per cent growth, as against the same period last year.

“Details of the statistics show that passenger traffic figure from the 21 airports stands at 5,777,598 as against 4,930,509 recorded in the same period for 2008,” said Akin Olukunle, general manager public affairs for the authority.

Mr. Olukinle disclosed that aircraft traffic figures showed a 12.3 per cent growth, stressing that the number of aircraft movements went up to 107,320, as against 95,575 movements for 2008.

“A breakdown of the statistics for both the domestic and international traffic also confirms this growth,” he said.

The authority’s spokesperson argued that the latest statistics in passenger and aircraft traffic disagree with some recently published articles on the level of traffic in the country.

“This contradicts recent reports in some publications which claimed that passenger traffic went down to 4,343,531 in the first two quarters of 2009,” he said. “On the domestic routes, the airports recorded a passenger traffic figure of 4,278,081 as against 3,592,725 reported in those publications.”

Earlier, Richard Aiseubeogun, the managing director of FAAN, disclosed that the authority’s objective includes developing routes and increasing the number of airlines operating domestically and in the West African Sub-region.

“Reasonable growth in the aviation industry will definitely have a positive impact on our economy,” he said.

Mr. Olukunle further argued that aircraft traffic figures on the domestic routes for the first and second quarters of 2009 also showed a “considerable” growth of 16.3 per cent.

“There were 92,369 movements in comparison with 79,434 movements recorded in the same period of 2008,” he said.

According to him, the international passenger traffic figure during the period showed a “definite growth,” with an increase of 12.1 per cent, when compared to last year’s figures.

Admitting that the number of aircraft movements on international routes experienced a drop, Mr. Olukunle attributed it to the introduction of large airbuses by foreign carriers which led to the decrease in international aircraft movements.

“The negative growth in the international aircraft traffic is as a result of the airlines using bigger aircraft for their flights, despite the fact that passenger traffic during the same period witnessed considerable increase,” he said.