Minister, stakeholders to brainstorm on air transport challenges today

Amidst growing concerns about the state of the air transport industry and its high volatility in Nigeria, industry stakeholders will today come together to find solutions to their common problems.

The 28th edition of the League of Airports and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC) Annual Conference in Lagos will have the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo (SAN), lead leaders of thoughts, operations, and aviation agencies, among others in the brainstorming session.

Keyamo, who confirmed his participation, alongside other industry major stakeholders, said that the forum would afford him the opportunity to exchange ideas with operators, business owners, and others on how the country’s aviation sector can survive amidst the prevailing macro-economic environment.

According to him, “the challenges before us and the industry are not insurmountable. We need to come together, especially at the LAAC conference. It gives us the best opportunity to dissect the challenges one after the other and agree on the steps to take to reach and achieve our goals.

“I urge stakeholders to come with open and progressive minds and let us take a good look at the sector, which we all know has great potential to boost the GDP of our dear country and open doors of employment opportunities for our teaming population of unemployed professionals,” Keyamo stated.

The Secretary of the LAAC Conference Planning Committee, Mr Albinus Chiedu, in a statement added that Mr Keyamo is Bill to serve as Special Guest of Honour, while the Chief Executive Officer of CITA Group, Dr Thomas Ogungbangbe, will chair the proceedings.

Stakeholders described the theme of the conference: ‘Aviation survivability amidst a challenging macro-economic environment,’ as timely against the background of the challenging state of Nigeria’s economy, which amplified the already existing constraints to growth and development of Nigeria’s aviation in form of poor access to forex, weakening currency, high fuel costs, maintenance costs, poor airports infrastructure, regulatory constraints, growing manpower demands, technology upgrade, passenger comfort, among other issues that require urgent attention.