Majority of Nigerian airports underperformed in 2014 signifying lack f patronage during the year.
A report obtained by Oriental News Nigeria showed that of the twenty located across the country four accounted for about 80 per cent of the domestic passenger traffic in the second and third quarters of 2014 whereas the remaining sixteen recorded slight or no activity during the period under review.
The Nigerian Aviation Sector Summary Report for the two quarters showed that the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos; Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja; Port Harcourt Airport, Rivers State; and the Kaduna Airport handled the highest number of passenger traffic.
The other airports were less busy, with some of them recording no passenger movement at all, the report said.
For instance, the Maiduguri airport had no international traffic in 2014, while those in Katsina and Sokoto reported just 13 and four passengers respectively in the second quarter of the year.
Commenting on the development, analysts at First Bank of Nigeria Capital Research Limited said air transportation recorded dull growth in the period under review.
While faulting the statistics made available by FAAN, they stated that the size of the country, the skeletal railway network and the poor condition of most roads meant that air travel was not the exclusive preserve of a very small minority.
“It would not be mischievous to air some doubts about data gathering by the aviation authority. In the rebased national accounts, air transport is a sub-sector of transportation and storage. In Q3 2014, it expanded by 1.6 per cent year-on-year yet, represented just 0.1 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product,” the analysts said.
According to the report, the airport with the greatest number of passengers travelling domestically in the second quarter of 2014 was that in Lagos with 1,106,787 passengers or 37.15 per cent of the total. In the third quarter, the number rose by 7,129 or 0.71 per cent to 1,013,916 passengers, or 38.27 per cent of the domestic total.
It stated that the second highest number of domestic bound passengers travelled through the Abuja airport, with 845,243 passengers, or 31.19 per cent of the total in the second quarter.
Quarter on quarter, this showed a rise of 143,944 passengers or 20.53 per cent from quarter one, only to decline by 57,261 passengers or 6.82 per cent in quarter three so that the total number of passengers stood at 787,622 or 29.73 per cent of the total.
The Port Harcourt airport, with 314,176 passengers, or 11.59 per cent of the total, had the third largest number of passengers travelling on the domestic routes.
The report added that the greatest positive growth in the third quarter came from Kaduna, which recorded an increase of 11,427 passengers or 28.94 per cent from the 39,485 passengers or 1.46 per cent of the total for the second quarter.
By Yemisi Izuora