New Tanzania's Airports Authority boss sets sight on 24-hour operations

The new director general of the Tanzania Airports Authority (TAA), MR Mussa Mbura, has vowed to focus on six specific issues during his tenure: to boost utilisation of airports; raise revenues and security as well as employees’ welfare, among others.

Mr Mbura, who used to work as the director of litigation in the Solicitor General’s Office before his appointment to the current position in March, talked in an interview with The Citizen’s Alex Malanga. Read on:

I understand that it is economically unsound for most airports to work for only 12 hours. As the new TAA boss what are your plans?

We want to ensure that all our airports operate 24/7 so that we make full utilisation of airlines’ aircraft and thus making airports busy.

Currently, most of our airports operate for only 12 hours per day due to lack of facilities for night operations, forcing airlines to cease their operations for another 12 hours.

How many airports are currently operating 24 hours?

Out of 58 airports owned and managed by the Tanzania Airports Authority, only three airports operate 24 hours. They are Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA), Mwanza Airport and Tabora airport.

What are the effects of not operating 24 hours?

This is unhealthy for airlines, airports and travellers. When Limiting airlines’ operations to only 12 hours, this is under utilisation of aircraft and thus loss of revenue.

It also means that airports lose revenue that they could get if airports worked 24/7. If our airports are not busy we lack revenue in the form of parking and landing fees, security fee and passenger service charges.

The pains do not end at airports and airlines, they are extended to customers who are forced to follow what the airports have to offer and not what they want to be offered by airports.

Out of the 55 airports that do not operate 24 hours, which ones do you expect to start with to mend their way of operations?

I will start with Dodoma, Songwe, Songea Arusha, Mtwara, Iringa and Tanga, then the others will follow.

We are confident this financial year Dodoma Airport will be ready for 24 hours operations, thanks to the increased government and private sector activities.

While other airports are at various stages of development, we are in the final stages before Dodoma and Songwe start operating 24 hours.

Completing all airports is in our short and long term plans and we will execute the projects depending on the availability of funds.

Apart from making airports operate 24 hours, what else tops the list of your priorities?

Security is of paramount importance for us to take to the apex our airports and aviation sector at large.

Security at the airport is a key factor to consider in all airports. It is important for effective and tight security systems to be put in place.

It is on these grounds that we want to install razor wire on the 17 km-JNIA wall, install security cameras, security lights and detectors as well as building security stations around the entire airport wall.

We are committed to stopping intruders who have been jumping fences to see what is going on inside. Intruders jeopardise our operations.

Does this mean currently, you don’t have an airport security perimeter fencing system?

We do have it, but we want to strengthen this.

For you to realise your vision, TAA needs to have money for financing development projects. How will you handle this?

I’m committed to boosting revenue and will be able to do this through automating revenue collection systems so that it is easy for us to enhance tracking. In some airports, revenue collection is done manually. So, we want to do away with this.

What plans do you have to diversify the revenue base?

From a bare-bones perspective, aeronautical and non-aeronautical activity provide airports with their two main sources of revenue.

But going by the global trend, non-aeronautical is significantly growing in importance over the past few decades as airports have become more commercially aware and developed the non-aviation related side of their businesses.

During the financial year 2020/2021, TAA realised a total of Sh71.42 billion of which revenue from aeronautical sources accounted for about 55.4 percent and non-aeronautical 44.6 percent.

In a bid to improve non-aeronautical revenue, we have invited investors to build a four star hotel and Business Convention Centre at the JNIA.

We are at the final stages of getting contractors. We are working closely with the private sector to implement the projects.

Will the implementation of the projects be in the form of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement?

Not really. It takes time before starting implementing the projects under the PPP arrangement. As it is, we will come up with a system that will make us move faster.

What is your plan in line with service delivery?

Keeping on improving services in terms of passenger experience is on the list of my priorities.

And here, we are considering how fast we handle passengers from the time they are landing.

Currently, for the passengers with no security issues, we use 10 minutes, well below compared to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (Icao)’s standards of 45 minutes, thanks to automation of our systems.

For you to achieve your goal, you need a committed team. What are you doing to boost their morale?

We have started improving staff welfare to increase their morale. We believe that if our staff lack peace of mind, we will not realise our targeted goal.

We have started providing our workers with bread, milk, tea and sugar as a way of boosting their morale.

We are now working on the issues of risk allowance, meal allowance and housing allowance to create peace of mind and calmness. And soon, we will start walking the talk.

For a long time airports stakeholders including airlines and ground handlers have been calling for the cut in various charges and fees. What is your reaction to this?

For now we don’t have any plan in regard to that because our charges and fees are reasonable as per the international standards.

However, my priority is to provide incentive schemes depending on the nature of business.

This is what we are working on to attract more investors to come and invest in our airports.

The effect of Covid-19 on the aviation sector on the globe is immense. How did the pandemic affect Tanzania?

Between August 2020 and September 2021, At JNIA Terminal III, Arusha and Lake Manyara for-instance, business dropped by 67.8 percent, 62.6 percent and 80.7 percent respectively.

What did you have to offer in line with pandemic boosting measures?

Between August 2020 and September 2021 we provided discounts of 47.8 percent, 42.6 percent and 60.7 percent to our operators operating at JNIA Terminal III, Arusha and Lake Manyara respectively.