Abuja — The Federal Executive Council (FEC) yesterday ruled that any aircraft above 20 years will not be allowed to fly the country's air spaces.

Such aircraft are also not to be imported into the country as part of measures for promoting safety within the country's airspace.

Minister of Aviation, Fidelia Njezeh told State House correspondents after the FEC meeting which was presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan that the Federal Government was also embarking on the remodelling of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA) and the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja.

On the age of aircraft age and maintenance, she said "we have an existing policy on the age of aircraft. Any aircrafts that will be imported into the country must not be more than 20 years old, and we have maintained that policy. None of the aircraft in our air space is above 20 years old".

"We also have a policy on maintenance of the aircraft. NCAA is charged with ensuring that all aircraft are well maintained and their spare parts are always available. So we have not compromised in the area of safety and maintenance of our aircraft," she stated.

According to her, government was doing all within its powers to up grade the facility at the two major airports in the country.

"We all know that our airports have outlived their shelve life, so to say. They are obsolete, the facilities are degraded, we need to modernize them to meet international standard and government is not sleeping on that. We have made a presentation on that before Mr. President and we are about to roll out our plans on modernizing and upgrading our facilities at the airports," she said.