BY: OLAPEJU OLUBI
Minister of Aviation and Aerospace development, Festus Keyamo has mandated owners of unserviceable planes at the aircraft “graveyard” of the Murtala Muhammed Airports (MMA) Lagos to evacuate them within three months, as the Federal government is planning to expand the apron where the equipment have been abandoned.
Keyamo who gave the mandate during a facility tour of the Lagos Airports directed the Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Muhammed Kabir to alert owners of the unserviceable aircrafts to move them as apron expansion commences soon or the government will be at liberty to dispose them.
While stating his awareness of court cases on abandoned aircrafts, he stressed that those aircrafts are hampering development at the airport and they must be removed.
Just as he said the old terminal of the Murtala Muhammed international Airports would be shutdown by October 1st 2023, while all airlines using the facility relocate to the newly built terminal by the Chinese Civil Engineering Construction company .
“I am giving the international and all the other airlines until October 1 to move from the old terminal to the new terminal. What we are going to do temporarily is that we are going to shut down the old terminal and sort out all the issues regarding the renovation of the old terminal,” Keyamo said.
The minister frowned at the present decaying condition of the old terminal as he referred to it as a complete eyesore, saying it is not befitting to be the gateway of the country.
He explained that the new terminal has not been in use because of its faulty design, as there is no provision for bigger aircraft and it does not have avio bridges for passengers to embark and disembark.
According to him; “The major complaint of Nigerians or foreigners coming into the country has been about the old terminal. That terminal is an eyesore. And we have this old terminal that the Chinese built. Nigerians have been asking why the new terminal is not put into use”.
“The simple reason is that I don’t know how this new terminal was designed. There is no provision for the big planes. I don’t know how it happened. I’ve been asking questions about how they would design an international gateway like the Lagos terminal without a provision to take the big planes; it doesn’t have the avio bridges that can link to the big planes. That has been the reason why we have not been using this new terminal and that’s why Nigerians have been asking that question”, he explained.
His words; “For now, the temporary arrangement we want to make and for the comfort of Nigerians, we have to find a way to use the new terminal built by the Chinese even without the big planes coming in because there are no avio bridges for them to use and the gate bridges for the passengers to pass”.
“So like it’s done in many other countries we are going to do emergency procurement to buy the big buses. So we are going to put them in buses and move them to where the big planes stop in an orderly fashion, both the arrival and departure so that Nigerians can have some sort of comfort with this new facility,” Keyamo said.
He noted that the long term plan is to build avio bridges for the big planes coming in “and that means that some of those private hangars will have to go for public purpose. If we have to do anything for them we will relocate them so that we can have a beautiful and functional gateway to Nigerians.
While addressing airport concessions issues, Keyamo noted that all projects and concessionary plans including the proposed national carrier has been suspended while he table the case to the president of the Federal republic of Nigeria.
“There are issues already on the ground before I came; concession and all of that. For now I have suspended all of that until I brief the president as to what is happening regarding all those noises going on, including the issue of the Nigeria Air. I have given them the directive to suspend everything until I brief Mr. President fully. The duty I owe Mr. President is honesty; he brought me here and for me to correctly advise him”, he stressed.
