As Travellers Lament Poor Air Conditioning at Lagos Airport

Chinedu Eze

In what seems to have become a perennial problem, air travellers have thumbed down the poor facilities at the international wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, now known as old terminal.

Those who travelled through the terminal in the last two weeks have severely complained about the poor cooling system, forcing some passengers to remove their clothes while going through the check in process at the airport terminal.

Over the years the facility has been known for power hiccups, which plunges the whole terminal into darkness even at most critical period in the night when most of the international airlines are processing their passengers.

THISDAY gathered that airlines have secured recharge lamps always waiting for the inevitable power outage and even officials of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) have acquired rechargeable fans to augment when there is outage. But such auxiliary support cannot replace the needed air conditioning system that ought to be at the airport.

An official of FAAN whose office is at the international wing of the airport, told THISDAY that almost every year new air conditioners are procured but they break down too often because contractors awarded the procurement contract usually buy “inferior ones that cannot stand the rigour of serving the terminal for 24 hours, so they break down too often.”

When THISDAY visited the terminal, many passengers on the queue to check-in were fanning themselves with anything they could lay their hands on. The handling company officials were using support fan tucked at corners in the counters. A Nigerian Customs official told THISDAY that it was not because there was no air conditioning, but that the heat was too much and remarked that FAAN could have envisaged the heat at this period and fortified the air conditioning system at departures.

At the public affairs department of FAAN, one of the officials told THISDAY that the heat was too much because of prevalent hot weather, noting that even at individual homes, people find the heat unbearable; that sometimes “air condition and fan blows hot air.

“We will continue to upgrade our equipment. This is heat period that even when you put A/C in your place it brings hot air at some time,” the official said.

The FAAN officials confirmed that there was no plan to move all the operations to the terminal because there are a lot to be done in the new facility before it could provide comprehensive service, which include expanding the ramp. Currently only airlines with small body (singe isle) aircraft that can facilitate passengers from the new terminal and that is why the big carriers still use the old terminal.

“I have been travelling through this airport for years and the air conditioning has remained inefficient. I recall a time I travelled from here and the air condition was working very well. We commended those managing the airport and hoped that they would continue to maintain that level of efficiency. But you know Nigerian government thing, good things don’t last and here we are still complaining of the same thing,” the passenger who craved anonymity, said.

However, the General Manager, Public Affairs, FAAN, Mrs. Faithful Hope-Ivbaze, told THISDAY that work has started to revamp the air condition system.

“I understand that work has started to reinforce the air conditioning. We hope that the problem will be solved soon,” she said, adding that moving to the new terminal would be a gradual process.

THISDAY investigation revealed that the old terminal is characterised by myriads of problems, which include the absence of charging pots, no enough seats, no efficient wifi and the most challenging problem besides poor air conditioning is the dilapidated baggage conveyor belt (carousel).

THISDAY also learnt that the baggage conveyor belt is not working. It breaks down after every two days. Recently passengers waited for a long time before they could collect their baggage and there were times baggage handlers had resorted to manual movement of the bags from the aircraft to arrivals, which was cumbersome.

Recently industry expert and Managing Director of Flights and Logistics Solutions Limited, Amos Akpan, told THISDAY that infrastructure facilities at the Lagos airport are bad, noting that the airport is not passenger friendly.

He observed that having a functional airport indicates that passengers would feel comfortable while in the terminal and that many things one could find at major airports in Africa or elsewhere are lacking at the airport.

“If you watch the video of how passengers’ bags are thrown about by handling company workers, you will agree with me that the airport is not passenger friendly. The checking in system is bad. The infrastructure is totally bad. Airports are built for the comfort of passengers, their luggage, cargo and for airlines. Any airport that does not meet this requirement is not worthy to be an airport. So after safety the next is customer comfort. How comfortable are the passengers? The Lagos airport is not friendly.

“It is only those that enter VIP lounge that have some comfort so the airport is segregating passenger comfort for a class of passengers. Ideally avio-bridges should have maintenance calendar but here they have to breakdown down before you think of replacing or rehabilitating them. FAAN is still concentrating on kinetic for aviation security when other airports are concentrating on bio-data, profiling and technology. They are talking of giving guns to aviation security personnel,” Akpan said.