As Nigeria marks 100 years of organised aviation, an industry analyst, Adeola Fadairo, has called for the establishment of a national aviation behaviour strategy to prepare the country for the next century of air travel.
Fadairo, in an interview with The Guardian in Lagos, warned that while the past century was dominated by engineering advancements, the next phase of global aviation would be shaped largely by human behaviour, emotional responses and the psychological pressures facing both passengers and airport staff.
According to him, the sector is increasingly confronted by a rise in unruly passenger incidents, emotional outbursts at terminals, intimidation of frontline staff and tension-filled interactions across travel touchpoints.
These issues, he argued, are signs of a deeper behavioural crisis that aviation authorities had not yet fully recognised. According to Fadairo, the aviation system was built to handle mechanical failure, not emotional overload, stressing that Nigeria celebrated a century of technical achievements, but the future of aviation safety would be determined by how human beings think, react and behave within these systems.
Fadairo noted that global travel had become more emotionally charged as passengers increasingly grappled with financial pressures, stress, digital impatience, and distrust of travel processes.
Many travellers, he said, arrive at airports already overwhelmed, interpreting delays and disruptions personally rather than procedurally. In Nigeria, these behavioural tensions, he maintained, are already evident with arguments at boarding gates, hostility towards ground staff, viral videos of confrontations and incidents that escalate into safety concerns.
With Africa projected to be the world’s fastest-growing aviation region in two decades, Fadairo warned that millions of new, first-time travellers would enter the system with varying cultural expectations and lower tolerance for friction.
Without behavioural preparedness, he said, the region could face an escalating crisis of misunderstanding, conflict and operational disruptions.
Besides, he urged the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), airlines, training schools and airport operators to jointly develop a national behavioural framework that would guide staff training, airport design, communication standards and passenger education.
Such a model, he emphasised, should include psychological and emotional intelligence training for aviation workers, human-centred airport design that reduces stress triggers, traveller education campaigns on responsible behaviour, and behavioural risk monitoring and data-driven policy-making.
He said: “These are not just courtesy problems; they are safety risks. Behaviour must be treated as a critical component of aviation safety, not a peripheral customer-service issue.
“If Nigeria builds a behavioural ecosystem that matches global best practice, it could become the continental benchmark. No aviation system can thrive when human volatility is unmanaged.”
Besides, Fadairo called on international bodies such as the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to elevate behavioural intelligence into global aviation standards, just as they previously standardised safety management systems and crew training.
He proposed the development of a passenger behavioural framework to harmonise behavioural expectations, reduce cross-border conflicts and strengthen emotional resilience within aviation environments. He projected that Nigeria’s next century of aviation would depend less on aircraft and terminals, while focusing more on people.
“Aircraft are masterpieces, but aviation survives because people travel. The next 100 years must focus not only on machines and infrastructure, but also on the human mind, emotions , and behaviour. That is where the future of safety lies,” he said.
