Minister Keyamo petitions IATA to fix Osubi Airport’s misleading ‘Warri’ code

Aviation minister Festus Keyamo has formally called on the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to scrap the three-letter location code “QRW” assigned to Osubi Airport, insisting the current tag is a geographical misfit.

The airport, which operates under the ICAO four-letter indicator DNSU sits in Osubi town, Delta State. Though it serves the Warri metropolitan area and is often informally labelled “Warri Airport,” the Federal Government maintains that the facility’s legal and official name is strictly Osubi.

In a letter addressed to IATA’s West and Central Africa area manager, Dr. Samuel Fatokun, Keyamo argued that the code “QRW” anchors the airport to Warri rather than its actual physical location. He requested a formal review, proposing OSU, OSB, SUB, or QSB as potential alternatives, while deferring the final decision to IATA’s established coding protocols and slot availability.

The push is not merely administrative. Keyamo has issued a parallel directive to all domestic airlines: flights in and out of the facility must now print “Osubi, Delta State” on all tickets, luggage tags, and boarding passes. The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), and Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) have similarly been ordered to update their operational records, publications, and system interfaces to reflect the correction.

“Osubi is not Warri and Warri is not Osubi,” Keyamo said, distilling his position with unusual bluntness.

For the minister, the move is about precision, not rebranding. Eliminating the QRW code will reduce the kind of baggage mishandling and ticketing mix-ups that arise when a facility’s operational code contradicts its actual name. It also signals a wider ambition within the aviation ministry to scrub Nigeria’s airspace data of national discrepancies, ensuring that local airports are accurately represented in global aviation databases.