*Ramp not sufficient for wide-body aircraft
*We are correcting design errors, management says
About two months after it opened amid glitz and glamour, the new ultra-modern terminal at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) has failed to draw foreign airlines’ patronage.
The facility’s rejection, estimated to cost $100 million, and arguably the most beautiful interior in Nigerian aviation, is not unconnected with its apron space constraint for operating aeroplanes to park.
Currently, only Nigeria’s flag carrier, Air Peace, has migrated operations from the old international terminal to the new one. Ghana’s African World Airline (AWA) and Togolese Asky have expressed interest to migrate too.
However, dominant airlines like British Airways, United Airlines, Air France-KLM, Emirates, Lufthansa, Qatar, Ethiopia, Etihad and Kenya Airways have declined offers to move into the new facility that promises a world-class customer experience.
“We were happy to see LOS open the most befitting international terminal. It is good and very beautiful. We have plans for our own lounge experience, but our big aircraft still come close just yet.
“They (FAAN) want us to move in immediately. We want to go too because it is a lot better than the old terminal. But we have to tell them no. The terminal is very beautiful but not ready for use. We fly triple-seven and 330s. When you have good space for aircraft, we will be glad to come and use the beautiful terminal,” he said.
Most foreign carriers traditionally operate wide-body airliners, some of which (especially B777) are 73.9 metres long, with a sprawling wingspan average of 62.8 metres. They require a large ramp area for parking and manoeuvring with a limited risk of clipping wings.
Defective design
Recall that the Goodluck Jonathan administration approved the construction of four new terminals for Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano airports in a 2013 China and Nigeria loan deal, worth $500 million. The projects were handled by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) in conjunction with the Ministry of Aviation and ought to have been delivered in March 2015.
Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, had in 2016 faulted the location of the Lagos and Abuja terminals, describing them as wrongly positioned.
Sirika, who was short of describing the projects as a waste, said the new terminal in Abuja alone cost an extra N5 billion to relocate the control tower and fire station that were erstwhile blocked by the terminal. The same terminal in Lagos also got in the way of power cables that service the entire airport.
Apparently wrongly located and donned a flawed design standard, the Lagos terminal is built on approximately 56,000 square metres, but in-between the Seymour Aviation Car Park on the right, and private hangers on the left, allowing only a narrow path for aircraft to access its fingers.
Former Secretary-General of the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), Olayinka Abioye, said aviation workers were not involved in the planning and execution of the project, as it was strictly a direct contract between the Federal Government through the Federal Ministry of Aviation and the CCECC.
“The contract was signed on behalf of Nigeria by a former minister now a senator (Stella Oduah) and the Government of the People’s Republic of China.
“If workers had been involved, several discrepancies noted would never have happened. You must have heard of errors of building on the sewage systems, over electrical cables, buildings that blocked the Control Towers and so forth because there was no direct supervision from FAAN or its agents. How can a terminal exist without space for aircraft to turn around?” Abioye queried.
He added that aviation unions are highly embarrassed by this development, yet took solace in the fact that they were not involved, otherwise “heads would have rolled”. Read more