Airports Witness Low Turnout of Passengers after Presidential Elections

Chinedu Eze

There has been low turn out of passengers at the nation’s airports, as few Nigerians are leaving the locations where they voted or travelled to two days after the conduct of Presidential, Senatorial and House of Representatives elections in the country.

Travel agent at the domestic wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, Bassey Orok, told THISDAY that the terminals at the Murtala Muhammed Airport 2 (MMA2) and the General Aviation Terminal (GAT) have been scanty since Sunday, a day after the election, observing that many people were not disposed to travelling in the last two days.

He attributed the reason for the low passenger movement at the airports to the fact that many schools have closed and many people are afraid to travel due to uncertainty because of the elections and security fears, suggesting that things might return to normal after the elections.

 “The airport terminals are scanty. Only few people came to the airport yesterday (Sunday) and today (Monday) and the fair has not increased. Average airfare remains N50, 000. People are not at the airports. Many schools have closed for this election so students are not going back to their schools and many people are also afraid to travel. Nigerians at this time will not like to be moving up and down until things are settled concerning the elections,” he said.

But an official of Air Peace told THISDAY that the airline operated its flights scheduled for Monday, but admitted that many passengers rescheduled their flights.

“Our flights are doing well, but a lot of people rescheduled their flights, but all the flights we have today are operating as scheduled; even this evening we will operate all the flights. There has not been any issue with our flights,” he said.

However, industry stakeholders said that since late last year there have been lull in air travel, which they attributed to election period, saying that many businesses and individuals are waiting for new government to be formed before they go into full activities or embark on more investments and these have affected air travel.

So as the elections begin there is further reduction in passenger movement at the airports. The Chief Operating Officer of United Nigeria Airlines, Osita Okonkwo recently told THISDAY that economic activities have been low due to the elections and that has affected air travel.

“You can see that everything has frozen, it is like we are on a standstill. Everybody is hoping that the elections will come and go and new ideas will come. This is because nobody is talking about anything. If you even look at those doing fast moving consumer goods, everybody is complaining. It is either you keep your stock, or you discount them and sell at a lower price and get cash flow. Even those selling fuel, every morning I get calls they are not buying (aviation) fuel, because many of them have stopped, people are not buying. So it is a bit of a problem,” he said.