Market News

BY  Chinedu Eze 

The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has announced that over one million passengers were processed through the international and domestic terminals of the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMIA), Lagos between January and March this year.

Statistics made available by the agency indicated that the airport recorded a total of 323,751 passengers out of which 149,557 passengers and 174,194 passengers respectively arrived and departed through the international wing during the period.

At the domestic wing, 402,519 arrived while departure recorded 337,041, bringing the total number of passengers on the domestic routes to 739,560 between January and March 2021.

Also, in terms of aircraft movement, a total of 17, 286 aircraft were recorded at the airport during the first quarter of the year with records showing domestic aircraft movements 12,744 while international aircraft movement was 4,542.

Commenting on the statistics, the Airport Manager, South-west, Mrs. Victoria Shin-Aba said there was no significant drop as Lagos remained the business nerve centre of the country as most flights terminate at the airport.

Shin-Aba explained that there was a gradual reawakening from the COVID-19 lockdown, noting that despite fears of second wave of the pandemic, air travellers are not discouraged to travel.

“It is like a gradual reawakening, a gradual restart away from the COVID-19 issue, there came the second wave but that did not discourage people from travelling so, it is growing gradually.” On COVID-19 protocols, the Airport Manager stated, “As soon as you get into the airport environment the COVID-19 protocol is activated.

“You can get to town everywhere, you don’t see people obeying it but as soon as you get to the airport, we enforce it, people would not want to cooperate but we are enforcing it both for staff and passengers, people are cooperating.

“If you don’t put on your mask we wouldn’t allow you into the terminal building and even if you are in the terminal building and you remove it we have some task force going around correcting people, asking you to please mask up, so there has been a lot of cooperation from the passengers as well as other airport users” She, however, condemned the number of family members that follow travellers to the airport, saying this has constituted a challenger in managing human movement at the airport.

“We have been having some challenges along that area. You know our culture the way we do things, one person is travelling, ten people will follow him, but we still try as much as possible to discourage people,” she said.