Nigeria: NCAA Okays Abuja Airport for Re-Opening
Lagos/Abuja
— The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has approved for
re-opening the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja, after
inspecting the rehabilitated runway.
The
reopening, after six-week of closure, will ease the pains of
Abuja-bound air travellers that have had their flights diverted to the
Kaduna International Airport while the repairs lasted.
The
Director-General of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, Capt. Mukhtar
Usman, confirmed that the job had been done up to at least 99 per cent,
with expectation that the remaining work would be completed on or before
the official opening date.
Mukhtar
disclosed that NCAA had concluded the second phase of inspection as
follow-up to the recommendations made to the contractors to correct some
areas of concern earlier identified by a team of experts.
According
to him, they inspected yesterday, made some observations but the
findings that were found were not safety critical and today it is found
that they have been rectified.
The
Managing Director of FAAN, Saleh Dunoma, said the identified grey areas
would be corrected after the agreed action plan and timeline with NCAA.
Dunoma said: “The inspection has been conducted. Since the beginning of
the project, this is the major inspection that was conducted. Although,
we have been working in collaboration with the NCAA, but of course, we
have to adhere to procedures and these procedures are that after the
completion or near completion of the project, an inspection will be
conducted.
An
official of Julius Berger, who was part of the inspection, Dr. Lars
Richter, expressed delight on how well the project has gone. Richter
said: “We are really proud to be part of this project. It was quite a
bit challenging to finish the project within six weeks. At the
beginning, everybody in Nigeria was concerned. Not everybody was happy
that the airport was closed for six weeks.
The
General Manager, Project, FAAN, Abiola Adejare explained that work
would still continue on the general maintenance of the airport after the
reopening.
“The
information that work would still be going on six months after opening
is not correct, although we will still continue work. We still have some
facilities around the airport that we need to make perfect and we even
have a contract with Julius Berger on airside rehabilitation work.”The
airside of an airport includes all areas accessible to aircraft,
including runways, taxiways and apron/ramps.
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