Domestic airlines fear for safety and reconsider operating flight to north.

From cancelling night-stops for their crew and aircraft in extremely volatile northern cities, especially Maiduguri some domestic carriers are seriously considering whether to continue operating flights all together  into other states like Kano and Yola .

Airlines are believed to be carrying out safety and security audits of their operations with virtually all the concerned airlines already re-examining their operations into the volatile northern cities.

According to reports, one of the airlines Director of Flight Operations said the carrier had on Tuesday send out two separate teams of officials from its safety and security departments to Kano and other cities in the North to determine if the airline would need to continue its flight operations into the unstable cities or not.

IRS, Aerocontractors, Arik, Chanchangi and Medview are among airlines that fly into the main northern cities.

The move comes after the bombing of a motor park in Kano on Sunday, which left about 75 people dead.

It is not the first time domestic airlines have conducted a safety and security audits of their operations. Last year similar security and safety audits were carried oy in the height of attacks from the deadly Islamic sect, Boko Haram.

The Punch reports:

Sources reportedly said the airlines believed they needed to review their operations into the cities as the suicide bomb blasts at an inter-state commercial bus park in Sabon-Gari area of Kano showed that air transport could also be a target of the deadly Islamic group.

The blasts, which also injured scores of passengers, drivers, hawkers and visitors, destroyed five luxury passenger buses.

A Marcopolo bus belonging to Gobison Motors had on board over 70 passengers when it was attacked by the suicide bombers just as it was about departing the busy park for Lagos, it was learnt.

Aviation security consultant and former Military Commandant of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, Group Captain John Ojikutu, (retd), said the domestic airlines were reacting rather late to the potential threat posed by the activities of Boko Haram to the aviation sector.

He said airlines should have carried out such security and safety review and audit of their operations to the North long before the latest deadly bombing in Kano.

Ojikutu said, “The airlines are starting too late. Aviation and airliners are targets of terrorists. I mentioned it a year ago. All the domestic airlines need to review their security programmes to see if they can sustain the present threat. I have seen that the security programme they have cannot sustain the threat.

“Airlines need to establish a list of their frequently travelled passengers so that it will make it easy for them to sort out non-frequently travelled passengers. The airlines need to come with a Computer Assisted Pre-Passenger Screening that will help them identify passengers who they need to carry out enhanced screening on.

“Also, government needs to come up with a list of people that are threats to civil aviation. Government can then circulate the list internally through the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority to the airlines.”

However, a top official of one of the airlines flying to the North told our correspondent on Thursday that the carrier would continue flying to the region as preliminary findings from the safety and security audits of its operations in volatile northern cities, especially Kano, revealed that certain security measures that could prevent attacks from the Boko Haram sect and other insurgent groups were in place.

“Along the road leading to the Kano airport, there are several security checks at the moment. And within the Kano airport, certain security checks have been put in place by the government,” he said.