Nigerian carrier, Air Peace, has commended the Federal Government for reviewing the Operating Weather Minima in 18 airports in the country.
The airline’s Communications Manager, Chris Iwarah, made the commendation while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Lagos.
NAN reports that the review was carried out recently by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), in conjunction with the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA).
Weather minima are the worst weather conditions under which aviation operations may be conducted under either visual or instrument flight rules.
The aerodromes where the operating minima and take-off minima have been reviewed are Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Port Harcourt, Calabar, Dutse, Eket and Enugu.
Others are Gombe, Ilorin, Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Owerri, Sokoto, Uyo, Yola and Zaria.
Mr Iwarah said that the review was a good development because of the problems caused by low visibility during the harmattan season.
“We must commend them for the review. The airline operators had a difficult time in December because we could not operate our scheduled flights due to adverse weather.
“So, what they have done is to ensure that we don’t face similar situation next time.
“On our part, we are ready to upgrade our equipment and give the prerequisite training to our pilots to enable them to operate under the Instrument Landing Systems (ILS Cat II) Approach and Landing Minima,” he said.
Iwarah said that all hands must be on deck for the implementation of the review as soon as possible in order to reduce cases of flight delays and cancellations due to bad weather.
NAN reports that the spokesperson for the NCAA, Sam Adurogboye, had on January 3, announced the review.
Mr Adurogboye said that the last time weather minima were actually reviewed was in 1983.
According to him, a semblance of revision undertaken in 1993 only stated that the take-off minima will be equal or greater than landing minima at all airports.
Adurogboye said that this was to allow for an air return to the same airport in case of an emergency.
“However, this present review allows for take-off as low as 150 metres Runway Visual Range (RVR), while some airports in the country with Category Two Instrument Landing Systems (ILS Cat II) can permit landing with 300 RVR.
“Before this review, the lowest visibility with Category Two ILS in the nation’s airports was 800 metres/550 RVR,” he said.
