NIGERIA MASTERWEB DAILY NEWS

*Airlines Will No Longer Fly Blind In Nigeria . By Lateef Lawal . The era of airlines flying blind within Nigeria’s airspace is gone forever, the Chairman of Board of Directors of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency(NAMA), Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje has assured. He gave the assurance while appraising the extent of the work done on the installation of the final phase of the Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria(TRACON) project. According to Baraje, the November, 2009 deadline given to the contractor-Thales of France for the completion of the project would be met without any delay. He explained, the Lagos and Abuja phases of the TRACON have been deployed into operations over three months ago; Kano and Port Harcourt phases, 95 percent completed with their mast and antenna already installed and tested while all terrestrial equipment needed for connection to other airports are in the country in their respective sites ready for installation soon. Baraje listed the sub-sites as –Ilorin, Maiduguri, Numa in Yola, Talata Mafara which when finally deployed would assist in no small measure in making air navigation with all the major airports of Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt seamless. Baraje said it would now be easy for NAMA to track foreign airlines in Nigeria’s airspace for the purpose of data collating and up-to-date billing for en-route and overflying charges aside from tracking foreign airlines that would want to enter or overfly the country’s airspace illegally, adding that, "The era of airlines flying free through our airspace is gone".