The Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mr. Saleh Dunoma said a plan is underway to provide surveillance technology that can detect unlawful incursion into the airside some seven kilometers away.
He said this while speaking after the commissioning of the Saleh Dunoma Press Centre at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos.
He said although airport is a public place that plays host to so many people, FAAN would provide closed-circuit television cameras at all its facilities, beginning from the international airports.
“Some areas in the airports are restricted; there is access control at the airports, we must have proper access control system. Security challenges come in various forms; when you address one, some others show up. We have mounted CCTV cameras at the Lagos and Abuja airports. It is 80 per cent and 70 per cent completed at the Lagos and Abuja airports respectively.
“We’ll also install a mobile technology that can see up to seven kilometers. If you try to penetrate unlawful, the surveillance system will detect it. By the time all the technologies are put in place security will be water-tight,” he said.
On revenue generation, Dunoma said the agency had not lost sight of non-aeronautical sources of revenue while it strives to deliver on its core mandate.
He said FAAN was concentrating on aeronautical revenue collection while taking steps, including the construction of airport city to diversify and shore up its revenue base.
“We are an airports authority and our primary function is to provide airport facilities and services, so we concentrate more on that.
“Aeronautical revenues are very easy to collect because they are well structured. A lot of aeronautical revenue comes from the airlines. The non-aeronautical revenues are given are given to concessionaires to collect for FAAN so that FAAN can concentrate on its core values of providing facilities and services to the airlines.
“We have engaged various stakeholders on some projects that will improve our non-aeronautical revenue generation. When we are done carrying out our aerotropolis project and hotels start rising around the airports as well as other revenue areas, then you can say we have joined other countries that have diversified their revenue generation base. When we are through with that, our non-aeronautical revenue will increase,” he said.