Out of about five stages of the needed certification process for the Muritala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, the Director-General, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NVAA), Capt. Muhtar Usman, has said it has passed four remaining the last stage.
Otherwise, the airport has reached the final stage of safety certification by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) under its Standard and Recommended Practices.
In an interview, he disclosed that the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja would be next while the same method would be applied in certifying Port Harcourt, Kano and Enugu airports, adding that it was important that the country’s international airports be certified.
Business Hilights recalls that based on the recommendations of ICAO, the international airports were recently audited, paving the way for the certification process.
NCAA boss averred that certification of the airports is to ensure that the provisions made by airport operator and the personnel meet and continue to meet the standards set by ICAO.
According to him, “It is based on safety that airport are certified and it is required by ICAO to give confidence to international airline operators coming in that standards have been met. That is not to say that what we have now is unsafe, because we have been operating. The airports, as they are, are safe and they will be even safer, if we bring them in line with (the ICAO) standards and recommended practices because ICAO wants to bring in uniformity in terms of standards and recommended practices.
“Within a very short time, based on what we have in place now, Lagos will be certified. The certification process is in five stages and the airport is at about fourth stage. The fifth stage is just the signing of the certificate.”
Key parts of the stages include the pre-application stage, formal application stage, document and evaluation of document stage and operational demonstration stage.
