Upsurge as domestic terminal records 228,239 passengers
The domestic Terminal One of the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA) Ikeja, also referred to as the General Aviation Terminal One (GAT) recorded a total of 228, 239 passengers in the month of December 2018.
Statistic made available to Woleshadarenews in Lagos by the Terminal Manager (TM), MMA, Mr Aderigbigbe Adekunle, revealed that104,168 passengers arrived through the terminal while a total of 124,071passengers were processed out during the period under review.
According to Adekunle, the management of the terminal, before the Yuletide, took several measures aimed at ensuring seamless passenger facilitation by servicing the conveyor belts, cooling systems and screening machines.
Adekunle said that the upsurge in passenger traffic was envisaged hence it was seamless passenger’s facilitation while some flights were moved to a less busy terminal for easy passenger facilitation.
“We have two terminals here, the Zulu and Alfa, what we did was to move some flights from the busy terminal to the less busy terminal for passengers comfort.
“Calabar, Port Harcourt and Uyo flights were moved to the Zulu terminal to ease the Alfa traffic where Air Peace operates from,” he said.
According to Adekunle, the Agege Motor Road construction work almost marred the airport free flow of traffic as the construction work had a spilled over to domestic airport users.
He, however, remarked that it was carefully handled by FAAN officials at the terminal end.
“The only challenge was the construction work on the Agege Motor Road, passengers find it difficult to to move out of the terminal to connect to Agege Motor Road. The traffic extended to the terminal and passengers expressed bitter experience during the Yuletide period,” he said.The terminal manager also revealed that the automation of the domestic car park by
FAAN early last year brought sanity to the area as some people, who were not travellers, took undue advantage of the non-automation of the park to leave their vehicles there.
He said with the billing system introduced, the number of vehicles at the park had gradually reduced through proper monitoring.
Adekunle, while acknowledging the small size of the domestic car park, explained further that there was plan by management of FAAN to construct a new multi-storey car park at the domestic wing, noting that when completed, it will cater for the decongestion of traffic at the terminal.
On indiscriminate washing of vehicles by the domestic airport car hire operators at the park, the manager noted that the management would continue to sensitise them on the need to use the designated car wash area at the park.
He explained that touting activities had been reduced at the airport with various arrest made on a daily basis by FAAN security personnel, warning that anyone caught touting within the airport would be apprehended and handed over to law enforcement agents.
He expressed appreciation to the management of FAAN for the evacuation order that led to the removal of all abandoned aircraft from the tarmac, which has created enough space at the domestic end of the tarmac.
Meanwhile, for better airport facilities, seamless travels and increased revenue, government has been called upon to allow airports in the country to generate their own power.
Aviation consultant and a former Director of Operations at Nigeria Aviation Handling Company Limited (NAHCO), Herbert Odika, told New Telegraph in Lagos that aviation in Nigeria had taken a negative dip in terms of infrastructural development.
Odika explained that airports would continue to remain stagnant if power supply remains epileptic with generating plants consuming its revenue generation.
He said: “1000KVA generator that they run at the airport uses a drum of diesel every hour and a drum of diesel is about N300, 000. So, how do you become viable if you look at your overhead cost.
“Government should allow airports to generate their own power, that will bring a huge saving to the airport especially te few major airports in Nigeria.”
According to him, Nigerian airports are not viable in spite of the commissioning of terminals, adding that passenger traffic had not been encouraging compare with the population of the country.
“An airport that cannot boast of 50 flights a day is not seen in the eyes of any private investors as viable.
“The overhead cost of Abuja and Lagos airports are carrying are not the best for concession. It’s not viable at all in terms of power issues, cost of tickets are not affordable and has had a ripple effect on flight in 2018,” he added.
He explained that foreign airlines operating into the country had been complaining of operating costs such as taxes, saying it was their passengers that now bear the brunt.
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