It is not yet known when the contract would be signed, but BusinessDay gathered that the team had inspected the airport and the proposed site for the terminal.
Edward Olarerin, regional manager, FAAN, in charge of Lagos airport, who disclosed this to BusinessDay in an exclusive interview, said the company was in Nigeria and went round the airport and chose a place that would be
suitable for the terminal.According to him, the firm traveled back to its base with plans to return in few weeks time when modalities for the project would be concluded.
The plan by the Belgian firm is in response to a call by the Federal Government for public private participation (PPP) in running of the aviation sector.
The airport opened on March 15, 1979 and named after late head of state, Murtala Muhammed, was modeled after Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.
The development will bring to fruition the initial plan to extend the international wing of the airport to four terminals. A similar initiative in the twilight of the Sani Abacha administration was still born.
Unfortunately, during the late 1980s and 1990s, the international terminal had a reputation as a dangerous airport.
This made the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 1992 through 2000 to post warning signs in all US international airports advising travelers that security conditions at the airport did not meet International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) minimum standards.
Just last week, BusinessDay broke the news on the break down of the air conditioning system at the airport which has continued to cause discomfort to air travelers.
An aviation analyst, Olumide Ohunayo, said “FAAN as presently structured cannot meet the challenges of the industry, neither can it cope with the prospects of the future. To avoid a looming infrastructural and operational chaos, the minister should endeavour to seek a reputable and internationally recognised airport company to partner, manage and restructure the agencyâ€.
According to him, the cherry picking policies of the former minister whereby only viable airports were given preference are retrogressive for a developing economy like Nigeria.
“A holistic approach involving all the government owned airports should be adopted. We should look at the models used by the Argentine and Indian governments and develop a suitable one for our airportsâ€, he said.
The analyst said the Indian government invited foreign investors to develop its airports on public private participation terms.
“They started by dividing the airports into Greenfield, new airports built from scratch, and Brownfield, modified or upgraded from existing facilities. Government retained 26 percent shareholding in these airports, either through the Airport Authority of India or through the state government.â€
Continuing, he said, “the government took these actions to save the industry from collapsing as the airlines were expanding in the face of decaying infrastructure. Recently, the parliament passed the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) into law to facilitate the quick implementation and supervision of the programmeâ€.