Most of Nigeria's airports operate at a loss, and the federal government is using revenue from a handful of profitable gateways to keep them running, aviation and aerospace development minister Festus Keyamo said.

Keyamo made the disclosure while defending the government's push for private sector participation in airport management, a policy he said had become necessary to improve efficiency, attract investment and unlock the economic potential of facilities the state can no longer fund adequately.

The minister did not soften the diagnosis. He said the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), whose managing director he noted was present to confirm the position, could attest to the scale of the problem.

"The reasoning behind it is that some of our airports are being run at a loss. We should say it the way it is. The managing director of FAAN is here to attest to that," Keyamo said.

Where does the money go?

According to the minister, a small number of primary airports and major international gateways generate substantial revenue — and most of those profits are then redirected to sustain the rest of the network.

"To lay it bare before you, we make so much money from some of our primary airports, so much money from our major gateways, and then most of those profits are ploughed into running some of the other airports that are run at a loss," he said.

In effect, Nigeria's aviation budget functions as an internal transfer system: the strongest commercial routes subsidise facilities that cannot cover their own costs. Keyamo offered no breakdown of which airports are profitable or how much surplus the winners generate, but his framing indicates the cross-subsidy consumes most of it.

Why is private participation necessary?

Keyamo laid out the operating burden that makes each airport expensive to keep open. Running a facility from morning to evening requires paying personnel, fuelling diesel generators for power, and covering a long list of other operational expenses, he said.

"If you know what it means to run an airport from morning to evening, you have to pay personnel, you have to run diesel generators, you have to do so much. And government is also very constrained for funds to even expand the use of these airports, especially the non-aeronautical parts," the minister added.

The diesel point is material: with unreliable grid electricity, generator fuel becomes a recurring cost at every airport in the network, every day, regardless of passenger traffic.

Beyond the aeronautical business of landing fees and passenger charges, Keyamo pointed to the non-aeronautical side of airports — commercial facilities and other revenue-generating activities — as an underdeveloped source of income. He said this segment has enormous potential that private investors could help develop, and that the government simply lacks sufficient resources to maximise the commercial opportunities available at many of its airports.

What does this mean for airport management?

The minister's remarks position private sector participation not as an ideological preference but as a fiscal necessity. The argument runs in three steps:

• Major gateways generate large surpluses.
• Those surpluses are consumed by loss-making airports and daily operating costs, including staff and diesel power.
• The state has no funds left to develop the commercial, non-aeronautical assets that could make the loss-making airports viable.

Private investors, in this framework, bring the capital government cannot supply and the commercial discipline to exploit revenue streams — retail, concessions and other facilities — that currently sit idle or underused.

Keyamo's public candour on the losses, delivered with FAAN's leadership present, signals that the government intends to make the case for privatisation-style arrangements openly rather than through quiet policy shifts.

For now, the arithmetic remains stark: a few profitable airports carry the weight of a national network that, in the minister's own words, must be spoken about the way it is.