The new terminal was completely barricaded, and passengers who tried to access the building were directed to the old terminal.
The new terminal at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, has not started flight operations, two weeks after the Federal Government inaugurated it and announced that flights could then take off and land at the new edifice.
A visit to the airport on Thursday showed that the old terminal is still very busy, with international flights landing and taking off from there and passengers being processed at the airport.
BusinessDay also observed that the new terminal was completely barricaded, and passengers who tried to access the building were directed to the old terminal to catch their flights upon arrival.
“The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) just rushed to inaugurate the new terminal because the president was coming to Lagos. There are hitches at the airside. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done around that terminal,” a source close to the ministry of aviation told BusinessDay.
“The roads and the runway have not been tiled yet. So, there is nowhere flights can even land. I don’t think the terminal will be ready any time soon because even after the runway is completed, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) will be invited for inspection.”
BusinessDay gathered that the new terminals at MMIA; Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja; Aminu Kano International Airport; Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu and Port Harcourt International Airport were all funded from the China Exim bank facility to the Nigerian government.
However, while other terminals have since been completed and put to use, the completion of Lagos terminal has been delayed as a result of design error and wrong placement of the apron (where aircraft are packed).
Upon the discovery of this error, the Federal Government ordered the demolition of several buildings around the place.
BusinessDay
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