Hi, welcome to this hall on the problems of air transportation, advantages.
Table Of Contents
- Air Transportation
- Advantages of air transportation
- Disadvantages air transportation
- Limitations or Problems of air transportation.
- Solutions
- Revision Questions
Air Transportation
Transport by air is the fastest and the most expensive means of transportation. Air Transport involves the use of helicopters, jets, airplanes and rocket to move people and light goods from one place to another by air.
Air transport can be chartered flight or regular flights. Charter flights involves the hiring of aircraft for specific purposes and are usually operated by companies, while regular flights involves the flight of aircraft from Regular routes and on fixed schedules.
Regular flight can operate into major ways:
(a) Internal (local) air transport: This involves the movement of aircraft within a country e.g, from Jos to Benin City. Such aircraft usually land and take off from local (domestic) airport.
(b) International air transport: This involves the movement of aircraft from one country to another. Such aircraft normally lands or takes off from international airports e.g. Murtala Mohammed and Aminu Kano international airports.
Advantages Of Air Transportation
- It is the fastest means of transportation.
- It uses direct routes.
- It can reach any place provided there are landing facilities.
- There are no obstructions as it can cross mountains, dense forest and large oceans with great ease and speed.
- Urgently required Medicare supplies, machine parts, express mails are easily dispatched by airplanes.
- It can carry valuable and perishable cargos.
- It is very comfortable.
- No cost is incurred in establishing air routes.
- It is best suited for passenger traffic.
Disadvantages Of Air Transportation
- It is expensive to operate and maintain, especially the aircraft and airport facilities.
- Lack of space in the aircraft restricts their use for flights.
- It is very expensive in terms of charges or fares paid by passengers.
- It is easily affected by bad weather which makes visibility very poor.
- There is the problem of safety, as incidence of plane crashing and hijacking are becoming very rampant.
Limitations Or Problems Of Air Transportation
- There is limited capital to construct airports and purchase aircraft.
- There is inadequate indigenous skilled Labour for construction and maintenance of airports.
- There is the problem of Inadequate spare parts.
- There is limited trading between countries in the sub region.
- Weather hazards, e.g, harmattan, linesqualls may limit air transportation.
- There is the problem of low patronage due to low income of the people.
- There is also the problem of poor management and inadequate security.
- Poor management.
- Low level of technology.
Solutions To The Problems Of Air Transportation
- Inter-regional trade within the region should be improved.
- Educational system should be changed to favour technical and scientific skills.
- Loans should be sourced locally or from abroad.
- Spare parts should be procured or sourced locally.
- There should be improvement in technology and standard of living.
- Efficient management should be adopted.
- There should be investment in technology.
- Improved weather forecasting.
- There should be training and restraining of personnel.
Advantages Of Air Transportation Over Other Means Of Transportation
- It is faster than any other means of transportation e.g, road, rail.
- It is used for time saving transportation.
- It covers longer distance than others, e.g, road, water.
- It is more secured to transport valuable items than road.
- It guarantees better access to remote areas than others.
- Air routes do not require maintenance.
- It is an important means of military movement than roads, rails or water.
Differences between Air And Water Transport
- Air Transport is faster than water transportation.
- Air transport costs more than water transportation in the haulage of goods and services.
- Water transportation is best suited for carrying bulky goods than air transport bulky goods than air transport.
- Air Transport is more suitable for movement of human being, perishable and precious goods than water transport.
- Air transport can be used to reach the remotest, the farthest and most uninhabitable places on earth but water transport is limited to water bodies only.
- The freedom of Air Transport is often interrupted with claims to air space by countries while high seas are free.
- Water transport is interrupted by hazards of rapid, falls and fogs while Air Transport is disrupted by visibility alone. [Visit here for types of water transport]
Revision Questions
- What is air transportation?
- Outline five advantages of air transportation.
- (a) Briefly State six limitations or problems of air transportation (b) Outline six solutions to problems of air transportation.
- State five disadvantages of air transportation mentioned above.