Experts and airport users have continued to decry the ailing state of some of the equipment at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos.
According to them, the baggage landing, runway, and the central cooling system, among others, are more than 40 years old and should be replaced.
Nigerians who travel through the airport in Lagos have also lamented the depreciation of facilities at the terminal, which makes travel a horrible experience.
The passengers decried the limited capacity of the terminal, broken down air conditioning system and the obsolete carousel -the conveyor belt- which fails to work most of the time.
One of such complaints is a Nollywood scriptwriter and director, Dami Elebe, who, a few weeks back, lamented the derelict state of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, on her Twitter page.
The scriptwriter narrated her experience at the airport which she claimed was riddled with puddles of water due to leakages.
“The entire Murtala Muhammed International Airport is leaking. Everywhere,” she tweeted.
She added, “Emirates had to give them a blanket to wipe the entrance into the ramp from the plane. They had to move the AC from the wall because water was dropping on it.
“Puddles everywhere. Nigeria can’t be real. How can an airport not have a central cooling system? The immigration place was smelling. Then the baggage carousel it’s broken. It’s even pushing bags off the carousel. And I saw this carousel when it was new a few years ago. Maintenance culture, zero. I’m really pissed guys. Really upset. How can this be the first place someone sees when they fly in? What is Nigeria?”
Speaking in a telephone interview with The PUNCH, aviation expert and the Chief Executive Officer, Centurion Aviation Security and Safety Consult, John Ojikutu said, “To adhere to periodic maintenance of those facilities, none of those facilities is less than 20 years and that is why most of the time I always ask, do we have a maintenance programme?
“This airport was commissioned in 1977. Between that time and now, even if your maintenance programme is regular, those facilities are outdated. But I think that there’s a program now to change all of them. When you bring people even from abroad to help with maintenance, most of the parts are outdated. So, even if you bring new parts, they will not fit. So, the problem with us is this, what is the lifespan of things that we put there, do we have it?”
He explained, “Secondly, do we have a maintenance programme for it. If we don’t have it, we have a problem. Sometimes it may not necessarily be because there is no money, it may be because we did not adhere to the maintenance and the contract on it. If you’re keeping a conveyor belt and an avio bridge of 1977, and you’re retiring the people that are maintaining them and the new people you’re bringing in don’t have the knowledge of the old machines, when they get to a standstill, the only people you can call upon are the manufacturers.
“When they come, they tell you that ‘this equipment is about 30 years old, where are you going to get the spare parts?’ Even with maintenance, you can’t get the spare parts from the original owners because they have changed; they are moving to the next step, that is one problem we have.
He added, “The second problem is even your own maintenance crew. Will there be people that you have kept in the service since 1977 till now? Even the ones that are coming in are learning from the ones that are going out. But it’ll get to a stage where the knowledge is lost completely and everything remains static. The good thing, which I heard last week from the higher authority, is that they are changing everything, not repairing it. They’re going to change everything at the international airport.”
The CEO, Finum Aviation Services, Sheri Kyari, said that the situation had lingered too long and expressed displeasure at the state of the airport.
He said, “These issues have lingered for about 15 years or more. A lot of stakeholders are not happy about it because of economic and most importantly, safety issues. We thank God that they are looking at fixing the runway lightning. The issue of faulty conveyor belts beats one’s imagination because they’re supposed to be facilities that should be in constant maintenance.
“It’s difficult to replace it because of the continuous flow of traffic, but if they have two wings that are doing this, they should be able to close down one to repair it and make it functional.
He added, “Honestly, it baffles me why Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria stays this long without looking into the issue which is working every day. We keep praying they do that. Apart from the conveyor belt, there might be other issues that we all know that FAAN is addressing like the increase in the terminal buildings at the international airport with a new terminal and a car park. It’s an improvement over what they’ve had for some time. We pray that they look at them and repair them. But again, with the concession that is coming, if it goes through, we pray that whoever is going to buy any of the airports will look at all those issues and fix them.”
The Managing Director, FAAN, Captain Rabiu Yadudu, about a month ago at an interactive session with aviation journalists in Lagos, stated that FAAN had begun the replacement and repair of aged equipment used to carry out its daily operations at airports across the country.
Speaking, Yadudu said that FAAN had inaugurated an ad hoc committee in 2021 because it saw that most of the facilities were aged. He said that the pieces of equipment were supposed to be replaced every 15 years, but some had more than doubled the specified years.
He said, “The major repair relates to aging equipment and components. I gave you an example in Lagos – abandoned runway and airfield lighting. Second is the key elements at the MMA and any other airport that we did not replace, but now, we are replacing them.
“Some were last replaced in either 1980 or 1985. Now, we are replacing them. It is only the air-conditioning system that we have not yet procured, but we are processing it and the airfield lighting.
“However, for all other basic ones such as disabled aircraft, baggage handling and other basic ones that the people see every day, we have started with them. On the avio-bridges, we have started with them and that is in terms of infrastructure.
The Head, of Research and Corporate Travel at Zenith Travels & Consult, Olumide Ohunayo, said, “Like the MD (Capt. Yadudu) said, the facilities are old, same as the airport itself, hence the plan to tear it down rather than continue to invest money in repairing it and all those things. I think some of those facilities are supposed to be removed completely because the spares are not even available and the ad hoc measures put in place to make them function cannot always be effective.
“We have a new terminal, though constrained by the airside space, which has made airlines not to move in there. We have just about two airlines there and others are complaining about the space. So, I think while they decide to work on the space of the new terminal, it’s better to just tear down that airport and replace everything. That looks like a better option rather than continuing to patch.”
Barely a month after Yadudu’s comments on the aged airport and equipment, the domestic runway of MMA, Lagos, was completely closed and it will remain so for three months to enable some repairs and installation of Air Field Lighting to be done. The AFL is one of many things that are wrong with the airport.
FAAN confirmed the runway closure in a statement titled, “Airfield lighting installation: FAAN to close domestic runway 18L/36R.”
The statement read in part, “As part of efforts aimed at improving safety and efficiency of flight operations at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria has concluded arrangements to complete the installation of CAT III Airfield Ground Lighting system on Runway 18L/36R. The project, which will commence effectively on Friday, July 8, 2022, is expected to last for 90 days. Consequently, Runway 18L/36R will be closed to flight operations during this time. However, stakeholders are to note that there will be no disruption. All normal flight operations will be conducted through runway 18R/36L. A NOTAM (Notice to Air Men) to this effect has already been published and disseminated accordingly.“
Though a welcome move, some airline operators and industry observers have decried the move, saying that the agency should have adopted a partial runway closure approach to the project. He noted that the 24-hour closure of the facility would lead to heavy traffic congestion in the airspace.
The PUNCH had reported that the President, Association of Foreign Airlines and Representatives in Nigeria, Kingsley Nwokeoma, had expressed hope that the government agency would complete the job within the stated timeframe as saying that,
“Apparently, we should always have in mind that the runways are major operational facilities and if you notice, we have always had runway issues and most times you don’t see the two runways being functional.
“The functionality is key because it is every airline’s dream to have a runway that is not being overused. These are runways that big birds keep landing on.
“The major effect will be that both the international and the local carriers will be using one particular runway, and this is not operationally healthy. Hopefully, we pray that FAAN and NAMA fix this on time and very well.”
Also, a former Managing Director of Aero Contractors and ex-MD of the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, Captain Ado Sanusi said, “The good thing about the Lagos airport is that it has two runways and both will not be closed at the same time. So, one is going to be in use while the other will be closed. The only negative thing is that the airlines will have to burn more fuel because there’s an increase in taxing time and since it’s one runway, traffic will be a little bit more and there will be delays in the air. The airport runway lighting is something that should have been done, they resurfaced that runway, so it’s something they should have done at that time.”
PUNCH
