BA, Air France, KLM, other foreign airlines’ planes too wide for new terminal
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Most foreign airlines – among them British Airways, Emirates Airlines, Air France, KLM, and Lufthansa – are yet to relocate operations to the new terminal at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos.
Nigerian carrier Air Peace has moved to the terminal but its foreign counterparts are wary of doing so because they fly widebody aircraft such B787 Dreamliner, Boeing 777, B747, and A330.
The MMIA, Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja and Port Harcourt International Airport and some other airports have recently added new terminals, funded by loans from the EXIM Bank of China.
Foreign carriers have failed to shift to the new MMIA terminal since it was inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari in March but Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) Rabiu Yadudu insisted they may be forced to do so.
“It is unfortunate that some of them [foreign airlines] said they will not move, but we are not ready to compel them to move. We’ll just keep quiet. You cannot be a FAAN client and dictate to us.
“When the time comes, they must all move. Those that refused to move to want to paint us in a bad light that we don’t have a good terminal, which is not true,” he said.
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Relocation in phases
“The terminal is open. When you commission a new terminal, you have to do an operational transfer before you can move. We decided to start moving in phases. We didn’t want everyone to move at the same time,” Yadudu explained, per The PUNCH.
“If you remember, when Terminal 5 opened in London, it took others about six months because of some teething challenges. It is only here that people complain.
“There is nowhere in the world that you have a perfect system. No airport operates in isolation from its environment. The aviation industry keeps evolving when the challenges happen and are tackled immediately.
“The relocation is in phases. No airport system will say you want to relocate to a new terminal and you want to remove everybody, you will crash. So, we sent two airlines and other ones will follow.
“I told them to move the airlines that operate morning and afternoon flights so that we will decongest the old terminal.”