As part of plans set in place to resume international flight operations in the country, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) has created nine new Performance-Based Navigation Area Navigation 10 (RNAV10) regional routes across the nation’s airspace.

The disclosure was made by the Managing Director of NAMA, Capt. Fola Akinkuotu, in a statement in Lagos today. He listed the newly created PBN routes as UQ300- connecting Lagos to the Central African Republic; UY604-linking Abuja, Port Harcourt to Southern Africa; UQ181- connecting East and Central Africa to Europe through Nigerian airspace; UQ400-connecting southern Africa to North Africa through Nigeria to Europe; UQ324-from Adis Ababa to Niamey through Nigeria; UY333-from Tunisia/Algeria to Lagos; UY87-from East and Central Africa through Nigeria to Accra and Abidjan; UY57-from East and Central Africa through Nigeria coastal airspace to Cotonou, Lome and Abidjan; and UQ200-connecting Yaonde to Lagos.

The NAMA helmsman made it known that NAMA has also created six new flight-plannable direct routes, which are: OK DCT POLTO; ARDEX DCT EDUKO; LAG DCT XIRON DCT JOS; KORUT DCT KDA; POLTO DCT APRUN DCT DETAR/ KORUT; and KELAK DCT POSIB DCT GURAP DCT IBA DCT POLTO.

In the words of the NAMA boss:

 “the flight-plannable direct routes are to be used by compliant airlines’ flight management systems.

“It will avail them the opportunity of flight- planning and routing within the Nigerian airspace from an entry point direct to an exit point without recourse to existing Air Traffic service (ATS) route network.”

Akinkuotu explained the agency embarked on the initiatives in order to boost regional connectivity, reduce flight time and fuel consumption for airlines, reduce C02 emission into the environment, reduce operators' cost, reduce pilot workload, and enhance airspace capacity.