Stakeholders Call for Urgent Rehabilitation of Lagos Airport International Terminal to Stop Incessant Fire Incidents

Chinedu Eze

Stakeholders in the Aviation industry have called on the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to urgently rehabilitate the old international terminal of the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMIA) Lagos, to avert major safety threats leading to incessant fire incidents at the facility.

There have been fire incidents at the terminal including the incident in September last year and another, which occurred in April this year, allegedly caused by electrical problems.

Industry insiders warn that these are auguries of tragic incident in waiting if FAAN and the federal government do not intervene and rebuild the infrastructure, noting that the new terminal is way too small to accommodate airlines and passengers.

They are of the view that the old terminal must be put in use because the new terminal has limited capacity.

The country manager of an international airline who works at the terminal, told THISDAY that FAAN should carry out forensic survey of the terminal and insisted that the problem of the terminal is mismanagement, noting that there is no weekly, monthly and annual maintenance schedule of the airport, which is in use every day and which has existed for about 40 years.

“The new terminal is not an airport terminal despite the state of the art facilities in it. Those are just aesthetics. Pragmatically, this old terminal was built with international standard on how an airport terminal should be, but unfortunately we don’t have good maintenance culture at the airport.

“The typical thing about Nigeria is that in government agencies and in public service, officials like to give contracts in order to get their own cut; otherwise, there should have been established system, whereby there is maintenance structure at the terminal, where you have engineers, electricians and other technical personnel who are put to work to maintain the airport. They are there but they are idle because any job that will be done is contracted out and that is why the terminal is in such deplorable condition,” he said.

According to him, to renew the terminal all the avio bridges (air bridge where passengers pass through to board their flights) should be changed, the conveyor belts for moving checked in luggage should be changed and the ones for arrivals should also be changed in addition to the tiles that were used to replace the more durable ones that came with the structure.

He also advised that the ceilings at the terminal should be changed and the central cooling system should be restored.

“You cannot install units of air conditioners and expect them to give you efficient cooling system and all those units consume power and take up spaces. If you go to Ikeja Mall you will see they have central cooling system. That is the way public facilities are built to ensure the efficiency of the cooling system,” he further said.

Also, the Managing Director of Flight and Logistics Solutions Limited, Amos Akpan, told THISDAY that the old international terminal needed a focused and very detailed regular maintenance.

He said because of the age of the facility, there should be constant maintenance, adding that efforts should be made to build more structure to turn the airport to an efficient hub with transit terminals.

“The terminal is old and has been used above installed traffic capacity for a long period. Our Minister of Aviation and FAAN are making plans to build new infrastructure to turn Murtala Mohammed international airport into a hub. But while that plan is ongoing, FAAN must pay attention to very regular inspection of the present facilities. FAAN must be intentional about repairs, replacement and upgrade of existing facilities in that terminal. Technicians must submit weekly reports of status for appraisal by the management. We all are aware the equipment and facilities are old, so to keep it functioning at installed capacity, regular maintenance is key,” he said.

He added that there should be internal customer satisfaction like on-time approval and release of funds to purchase spares, which is critical to satisfying the external customer – the passengers and the airline operators.

“Synergy between FAAN and users is predicated on clarity of communication. For instance, the car port and car hire operators appears rowdy, aggressive, and risky to visitors – it’s not customer friendly. With cameras everywhere and sufficient foot patrol personnel, it is possible to eliminate miscreants, which consists mostly current and ex-staff of organisations in the airport. Since the terminal manager, Omoshola, died by car bomb about twenty three years ago, the underground parking lots have been closed. It can accommodate the cars of all the staff working at that terminal. This would decongest the outside car ports for customers,” Akpan said.

However, THISDAY learnt that the underground car park has been put into use. It is now car park for FAAN and other airport workers..

Akpan also noted that cracks on conveyor belts should be noticeable with daily inspection and reports, which must be followed with quick repairs or replacement and the same goes for electrical cables, switch points, and for electronic installations.

“Also, an office with a designated name must be accountable for breaches, delayed repairs, and infractions. Each must have specified penalties. The time frame must be set to finish the design for the new hub infrastructure so that FAAN can present a business case on it to investors. This should have happened 15 years ago but it’s better done now than continue to talk about it. Other countries are thinking of the same project, some have approved designs, some like Ethiopia have launched their own hub facilities,” he said.