There may no longer be flights to Kano, Maiduguri, Yola and other volatile Northern cities as airlines are carrying out safety and security audits of their operations to determine if they should continue flying there or not.
This comes few months after airlines cancelled night-stops for their crew and aircraft in extremely volatile Northern cities, particularly Maiduguri.
The latest safety and security audits was preempted by the Sunday bombing of a motor park in Kano, which left at least, 75 persons dead.
Currently, IRS Airlines, Arik Air, Aero Contractors, Chanchangi and Medview Airlines operate flights into the key Northern cities.
The Director of Flights Operations of one of the airlines said that the carrier had dispatched two separate teams of officials from its safety and security departments on Tuesday to Kano and other Northern cities with the mission of determining if the airline should continue its flights into those cities or cease.
The official said airlines had carried out similar audits a year ago at the height of attacks from the Boko Haram Islamist sect.
Sources familiar with the situation said virtually all concerned airlines are involved in safety audits to review their operations into those cities, especially as the suicide bomb blasts on Sunday at an interstate motor park in Sabon Gari area of Kano showed that air transport could likely be targeted by the deadly Islamist sect.
The blast destroyed five luxury passenger buses, among them a Gobison Motors board just departing for Lagos with about 70 passengers on board. Besides the fatal casualties, scores of traders, passengers, drivers and hawkers were injured.
A top official of one of the airlines said that the airline would continue its flight operations to the region as preliminary findings from the safety and security audits of its operations to volatile Northern cities, especially Kano, revealed that certain security measures have been put in place that can prevent attacks from Boko Haram and her likes.
“Along the road leading to the Kano airport, there are several security checks at the moment. And within the airport, certain security checks have been put in place by the government,” he said.
However, an expert in aviation security and former Military Commandant of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos, Group Captain John Ojikutu (rtd) said that the domestic carriers were reacting rather late to the threat posed by the Boko Haram Islamist sect to the aviation sector.
He said such audit should have been carried out by the airlines long before the latest attacks in Kano.
“The airlines are starting too late. Airlines are targets of terrorists, this I mentioned a year ago. All the domestic airlines need to review the security programmes to see if they can sustain the present threat. I have seen that the present security programme they are using cannot sustain the threat,” he said.
He suggested that airlines establish a list of their frequently travelled passengers, so it will be easier for them to sort out those who do not travel frequently.
“The airlines need to come up with a Computer-Assisted Pre-Passenger Screening that will enable them identify who they need to carry out enhanced screening on.
“Also, government needs to come up with a list of people that are threats to civil aviation. This list should then be circulated among the airlines by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority.”