Coordinates: 05°35′50″N 005°49′10″E / 5.59722°N 5.81944°E / 5.59722; 5.81944

Warri Airport / Osubi Airstrip
IATA: QRW – ICAO: DNSU
Summary
Airport type		Public
Owner/Operator		Shell
Serves		Warri, Nigeria
Location		Osubi
Runways
Direction	Length		Surface
	m	ft
06/24	1,800	5,906	Paved
Sources: FAAN [1]

Osubi Airstrip (IATA: QRW), also known as Warri Airport , is located at Osubi, a town near Warri in Delta State, Nigeria. It has a runway of about 1.8 kilometres (1.1 miles) and is about 5 minutes drive by car from the city of Warri.

The federal government first drew up plans to build an airport here in the late 1970s to easy transport into Warri city by air because of its status as an oil city but languished the Plan for over two decades in a mixture of neglect and corruption. Meanwhile, people coming in and out of Warri continued to use an old airstrip, in a congested part of the city. The airstrip could only accommodate small air crafts.Its runway of about 0.7km was so short that whenever a plane took off or landed,^[2] the authorities had to close off an adjacent road to traffic so that a passing car would not be clipped.

Finding it harder and harder to conduct business with the old airstrip, Shell finally decided to build one on its own. The airport as commissioned and open for commercial use on 1st April 1999 with Shell (SPDC) landing a mordern Dornier 328 and aero contractors 50-feet Dash aircraft at the Osubi airport. Since the airstrip opened for Public use; it is reckoned to be one of the busiest aviation facilities in Nigeria^[3]and it is being operated in partnership with other oil companies.

The maintenance and facilities are among the best in the country and traffic flow is one of the highest. In fact, in the first six months of the opening of Osubi Airstrip, more than 100,000 passengers passed through just as it handled 3,500 aircraft movements.

• Osubi Airstrip has opened up Warri for businesses and investors who are assured of a quick, convenient and safe means of travel.
• It has promoted safe air travel and general aviation operations with its ultra modern navigational and landing facilities.

There is presently an out cry to the federal government to upgrade the status to that of an airport because of the increase in air traffic, While the Delta State Government is planning to add a longer second runway of 4.2km.

[edit] Airlines and destionations

• Aero Contractors (Lagos, Port Hartcourt)
• Arik Air (Lagos, Abuja)

[edit] References

1. ^ Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN): Warri Airport
2. ^ "That's No Airport. In Nigeria, It's a Grand Illusion.". New York Times. May 26, 1999. http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/nigeria.htm. Retrieved 2008-01-13. 
3. ^ "The Osubi Airstrip Success Story". Shell Petroleum Development Co. of Nigeria. October 2001. http://shell.com/static/nigeria/downloads/pdfs/8osubi.pdf. Retrieved 2008-01-13. 

[edit] External links

• Osubi Airstrip at Delta State web site
• Osubi, Nigeria at FallingRain.com
• Airport information for QRW at Great Circle Mapper.