The cost of Yar’Adua’s stay in Saudi

Apart from the medical bill, Nigeria is losing enormously with Yar’Adua’s continued stay in Saudi Arabia. For one, it was gathered that there are retinue of security personnel and other protocol officers, who are collecting out-station allowance.
Beside personnel, the presidential jet, which has been parked in Saudi is incurring huge bill. According to investigation, airports collect landing and parking fees from airlines that fly within and from outside their countries.

For the international flights, payments are made in United States dollars, while the domestic airlines can either pay in dollars or local currency. It was learnt that the charges are in two broad categories; day and night. The night charges are higher than daylight charges because more facilities are deployed for night operations. For day landing, the calculation is in kilograms and done in a simple arithmetic way. For day landing, FAAN charges $0.00909 per kilogram and that is multiplied by the Maximum Takeoff Weight (MTOW) of any airplane. For night landing, it is $0.01364 multiplied by the MTOW and most international airlines come and depart Nigeria in the night.

However, MTOW defers from airplane to airplane as it is determined by the manufacturer of the aircraft. Wide body aircraft automatically has higher MTOW than smaller airplanes. In other words, the type of airplane determines how much the airport authority makes from a particular airline’s airplane.

Investigation revealed MTOW for B747-400, which British Airways, for example, flies into Lagos daily with is 396,890 kg. In other words, BA pays $0.00909x396,890kg, which is $3, 607 or N541,159 per landing. For B777-300, which Delta Air, Air France and Emirates operate, the MTOW is 247, 210 kg and as such for each landing, it pays $2, 247 or N337, 070.

Virgin Atlantic’s Airbus A34-600 has a MTOW of 276, 500 kg and translates to $2, 513 or N377, 007
However, for parking, it is calculated as $0.00114 multiplied by the MTOW and also multiplied by the numbers of hours spent on ground by the aircraft. Airport authorities, in some countries, as in Nigeria, do not charge for the first three hours and that is why most airlines try not to exceed five hours. For instance, if an airline, like Delta Air, with its B777, stays for five hours on ground, the parking charge will be; $0.00114x247, 210 x 2 hours (since the first three hours is free), which is equals to $563 or N84, 545.

The Presidential aircraft, which is a 70-tonne Boeing business jet, has been parked in Saudi Arabia for the 55 days Yar’Adua has been out of the country. If the plane were to be charged for parking fee, at the Nigerian rate, it would be costing the country an average of $6, 756 or N1, 013, 400 per day. Therefore, in the 55 days that Yar’Adua has been in Saudi, the presidential jet has incurred about $371, 580 or N55, 737, 000.