Some Nigerians who travelled back home for the festive season have expressed dissatisfaction with the state of several facilities at the country’s busiest terminal, the old Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) terminal.
With a surge in passenger traffic this season and few functional facilities at the old terminal, passenger facilitation and flight operations have continued to be slow and discomforting for passengers.
A visit by BusinessDay to the old terminal on Monday showed a long queue of people outside the terminal waiting for their luggage to be screened, while those inside the terminal were faced with another queue waiting to be cleared before their luggage were checked in.
In March, the federal government commissioned the new Lagos airport terminal to handle passenger surge, as the old terminal was no longer able to process the number of passengers arriving at and departing from MMIA.
However, nine months later, the new Lagos airport terminal, which houses modern infrastructures, is being used by only five airlines out of the 16 foreign airlines operating in Nigeria because the terminal lacks space to accommodate big aircraft.
However, while the new terminal is still underutilised, passengers have in recent times complained of the worsening infrastructure at the old one, ranging from few functional screening and X-ray machines, frequent power outage at the airport, old packed-up escalators, bad conveyor belts, few access and exit gates and old non-functional aero bridges, affecting passenger facilitation.
“It is sad that since I left this country about three years ago, nothing has changed inside the Lagos airport terminal. The air conditions are still not working, people’s bags are being damaged because of poor baggage handling equipment and even the toilets are not properly clean. These things are strange because you don’t find them in other countries,” Ngozi Eze, a traveller who recently returned from Germany, told BusinessDay.
According to Eze, it took so long for her luggage to come out and when the luggage came out, some were damaged because of the manner in which they were handled.
“We have a lot to learn from other countries. A foreign investor won’t be faced with these inconveniences and would like to return here. I think we need to address these issues and make the airport a better place to ease travel experiences,” she said.
Another passenger who identified himself as Tunde told BusinessDay on Monday that he had heard of the new terminal and was expecting to pass through it.
“While I have nothing against using the old terminal, I think the travellers deserve better. The escalators are not working. Most places at the terminal are so hot because the air conditions are not working and yet we pay the airport authorities for these services. This is bad and things should be done better,” said Tunde, who travelled from London on a British Airways flight.
John Ojikutu, a member of Aviation Round Table and chief executive of Centurion Securities, said: “There are no clear plans for crowd control at the access and exit gates of the passenger terminals. FAAN hasn’t come out to say any plan on spacing between passengers’ flight departures and arrivals.”
Ojikutu listed some of the infrastructural gaps that cause flight delays at Lagos airport to include inadequate checking-in-counters; inadequate passengers screening checkpoints and screening machines or unserviceable screening machines resulting in manual screening; inadequate aircraft boarding gates; inadequate aircraft parking areas; inadequate ground handling equipment or facilities; and absence of taxiways or sufficient links from aprons to runways.
BusinessDay gathered that many airlines are yet to use the new Lagos terminal because the apron at the terminal is not wide enough to accommodate wide-bodied aircraft such as Dream liner aircraft, Boeing 777s, 747s and Airbus A380s, which are flown by Qatar Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, British Airways and Air Peace.
Olumide Ohunayo, an aviation analyst, told BusinessDay that the mistakes with the new terminal have been made and loans have been collected and must be paid back.
He said: “We must ensure we find better ways of managing the airport and the inadequacies at the new terminal. The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has the mandate to encourage airlines to move into the terminal, so that passengers can experience the beautiful ambiance in the new terminal and also help recover costs that have been expended.
“We just have to encourage the airlines while we look at how we can resolve the inadequate space at the apron side without getting into litigation and prolonged crisis in the industry. The industry must rise and we cannot allow this to continue. The airport master plan was distorted. Some of the decisions being taken in the sector need to be looked into and reassessed so we don’t get into the situation we find ourselves in, especially with the new terminal.”
Seyi Adewale, chief executive officer of Mainstream Cargo Limited, said he has noticed that densely populated cities globally experience passenger surge and congestion during festive periods.
According to him, what the city planners, airport operators and airliners do is to improve their efficiencies, digitise their operations, create slots, automate their check-in counters and sequence or integrate passenger inflows and outflows with modern train services to reduce vehicular movements around these airports.
He said: “Lagos airport, as a major domestic hub in Nigeria, will need the airport managers, airline operators, critical handling and support agents, suppliers and state ministry of transportation to form a robust committee to jointly tackle these crowding, capacity and congestion issues.
“For example, why do airline operators want to ‘own’ dedicated check in counters permanently, especially at the domestic wing: can the counters be automated, digitalised in such a way that it can easily transform, share or hold for the check in operations and efficiency transit from one airline to another?
“Why do we have many unserviceable aircraft at the Ramp functional areas? The Lagos government appears to want to integrate train services to the domestic airports. How can we optimise this? Can we further improve efficiency with good bus services?”
