AVIATION SCORES!

Hello and welcome to the blog!

Today, we shall be discussing the history of aviation in Nigeria.

The acceptance of the aviation sector in Nigeria and the desire to chase a sector which in itself has given back immeasurably to the beings that created it all started in Kano in the year 1925. Sometime in July of that year, the Northern city was gripped by a a tense stand-off between the residents and the colonial government officials.

The British government at the time was maintaining an active Royal Air Force (RAF) base in Khartoum, Sudan. On sensing the trouble in Kano, London swiftly signalled the commanding officer of the Khartoum RAF Squadron, instructing him to fly to the Northern Nigerian city and report on the situation. Flying a Bristol fighter, the pilot made a breathtaking but safe landing on the horse racecourse in Kano, thus going down in history as the first recorded aviation activity in Nigeria.

Without air routes, maps or radio communications the flight was regarded as "a particularly hazardous operation". So alarmed were officials that an idea was mooted that if Khartoum-Kano was ever to be made an air routes it would be necessary to have emergency landing grounds every 20 miles of the way.

Subsequent flights were to be originated from Cairo, Egypt where the RAF also had a base. The landings were so spectacular that one Kano resident was moved to paint the scene (the watercolour picture was later acquired by the government). The RAF operations were later to become an annual event, with frequency and route extended to cover Maiduguri.

The earliest known commercial aviation activity in Nigeria is credited to one gentleman, "Bud" Carpenter, who owned the earliest type of the Light aircraft, ‘de Havilland Moth’. Records show that he frequently undertook high-risk flights between Kano and Lagos, using the rail tracks as his guide and piling up the extra distance in the process.

In the early 1930s, an enterprising pilot carried a few fare-paying passengers in a seaplane between Lagos and Warri. With the continuation of the annual RPLF flights, aviation activities in Nigeria became quite considerable, creating the need for aerodromes.

Consequently, a representative of the Air Ministry in London visited Nigeria to inspect what could then be appropriately described as "landing grounds". Sites were selected at Maiduguri, Oshogbo, Lagos, Minna, Kano and Kaduna.

In 1935, the operations of the RAF were replaced by those of the Imperial Airways that flew regular airmail and passengers from London to Nigeria. These services thus pioneered commercial international operations in Nigeria, although it was not until 1936 that commercial aviation actually came to Nigeria. The Imperial Airways, the forerunner of the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), operated four large engine aero-planes, known as the Hannibal class or the Handley, on the Nile route from Cairo to Kisumu, Uganda.

Towards the end of 1936, a once-weekly service was introduced and another route, Khartoum–Kano–Lagos, flight, which took seven days, was operated with a relatively small four-engined aircraft De Havilland 86 (one of the DH 86's well-known passengers were Sir Bernard Bourdillon, who flew on the first-ever commercial flight from Lagos.

In Nigeria, early Pilots were brave and had to weather the harsh harmattan and rainy conditions. But there was one peculiar emergency landing near Maiduguri in 1937. Engineers were promptly dispatched from Kano. They arrived a day later on horseback with their tool kits. After some repairs the aircraft was flown out and again placed in service: Records show that it usually took a whole day to fly from Kano to Lagos in a DH8, considering its early technology and en route refuelling stops.

WAAC was charged to "Develop air services in and between West African territories." The airline began services with a six-seater De Havilland Dove aircraft. Its Nigerian domestic services were operated with the Dove while the West Coast services were operated with Bristol Wayfarers. The control and administration of Civil Aviation were vested in the Directorates of Public Works of these countries who applied United Kingdom Colonial Air Navigator orders as their legislative authority.

On attaining independence in 1957, Ghana pulled out of the the airline company, and in August 1958, the Nigerian government in partnership with BOAC and Elder Dempster lines formed the West African Airways Corporation (Nig.) limited which later became the Nigeria Airways.

This single, historic move heralded the genesis of the airline industry in Nigeria.

 AIRPORTS OWNED AND MANAGED UNDER THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE FEDERAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY OF NIGERIA (FAAN) ARE:

 

 The list contains both International and domestic airports:

1.      Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport            

            - FCT, Abuja

2.      Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport                
            - Kano, Kano State

3.      Murtala Muhammed International Airport                 
             - Ikeja, Lagos State

4.      Port Harcourt International Airport                                      

           - Port Harcourt, Rivers State

5.      Kaduna Airport           
            -Kaduna, Kaduna State

6.      Maiduguri International Airport                                           

            -Maiduguri, Borno State

7.      Yakubu Gowon Airport    

           - Jos, Plateau State

8.      Yola Airport        

           - Yola, Adamawa State

9.      Sadiq Abybakar III International Airport  
            - Sokoto, Sokoto State

10.  Margaret Ekpo International Airport 

            - Calabar, Cross Rivers state

11.  Akanu Ibiam International Airport  
            - Enugu, Enugu State

12.  Sam Mbakwe International Cargo Airport
              - Imo State

13.  Ibadan Airport    
            - Ibadan, Oyo State.

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