By Ayo Yusuf
The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, SAN, said Thursday, that the government will be shutting down one of Africa’s busiest airports, the Muritala Mohammed International Airport, MMIA, from October 1, 2023 for maintenance purposes.
The minister who directed all international airlines to vacate the airport before that date said this would be necessary in order to allow total maintenance work to be done at the place. “All airlines should vacate the MMIA before the 1st of October, 2023 and relocate to MMIA terminal two,” he said.
TheNewDiplomat gathered that although the MMIA built 44 years ago has remained the busiest airport in the country since its inception, the place had not benefited from any appreciable development or proper maintenance.
The minister who was on a tour of the international airports in Lagos was accompanied by the head of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, Mr. Kabir Yusuf Mohammed and other government officials.
Speaking at the sideline of the tour, Mr Keyamo directed the airlines and companies operating in the airport to move to the new terminal, MMIA Terminal Two which was commissioned in March by former President Muhammadu Buhari.
Although the minister did not provide a timeframe within which lthe work at the airport will be completed, it is clear that because of the volume of traffic handled by MMIA daily, the closure will add to the logistic problems there.
Statistics obtained from the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), showed that the airline just like in the past had the highest passenger volume in 2022 with 6,526,023 commuters representing 40.3 per cent of the total passenger volume in 2022.
The terminal which was commissioned in 1979, was originally designed to airlift just 200,000 passengers annually, according to the Director-General Civil Aviation (DGCA), Capt. Musa Nuhu.
The Big Five
In all, there are 32 airports in Nigeria, including five recognised international aerodromes, which are the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja, Port Harcourt International Airport (PHIA), Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport (MAKIA) and Akanu Ibiam International Airport (AIIA), Enugu.
Out of the over 16 million travellers that were airlifted into and out of the country in 2022, these five airports were responsible for the airlift of 89.7% of total travellers while the other 27 airports airlifted just 10.3%, passengers, within the period.
The five airports therefore shared 14,520,101 passengers among themselves while the remaining 27 airports had a total of 1,653,260 travellers in the last one year.
Statistics available showed that the top airports in passenger Traffic in 2022 include, The Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos which remains the hub of air transportation in the entire West and Central African regions; The Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja emerged as the second busiest airport in Nigeria responsible for the airlift of 37 per cent total passenger movement in the past, and just 3.3 per cent behind Lagos; The Port Harcourt International Airport, PHIA, which used to be called the worst airport in the world prior to October 2018 but nonetheless was able to airlift 900,728 domestic travelers last year; The Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, MAKIA,
which is the oldest airport in Nigeria and holds the record of landing the first aircraft in the country had a combined total of 585,190 passengers in the past year; and finally, The Akanu Ibiam International Airport (AIIA), Enugu which was the fifth busiest airport in the country in the past year and airlifted 508, 513 domestic travellers.
