The Federal Airports Authority, FAAN, is to commence repair work on the bad portions of the Enugu international airport runway before the Yuletide celebrations.
The palliative work is expected to start two weeks before Christmas to cater for the expected traffic during the Yuletide.
Because of the deplorable state of the runway, some airlines especially the domestic ones have stopped operating to the airport.
In a chat with reporters at the sideline of the International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO World Aviation Forum in Abuja, Managing Director, FAAN, Mr. Saleh Dunoma said plans have been concluded to ensure that when work starts the inconveniences to passengers were minimized.
“I was in Enugu last week and we are just planning to have a two weeks break just before the Christmas to make sure that we take care of that runway but has to be properly planned, we want to plan it in such a way that the inconveniences would be minimized”.
He explained that after inspecting the runway last week during his visit to Enugu state, he spoke to the Enugu state government of what they intend to do to ensure safety on the runway.
He observed that while work was on- going, the airport would not be closed but the time of operations would be shorten for speedy completion of work.
“so I have spoken to the people of Enugu precisely the Government so that they know what we intend to do, we are not going to close it. But what we intend to do is to maybe shorten the time of operations, so that we can take ten days and fix it but operations would continue”.
It will be recalled that the joint committee on aviation of the National Assembly during their oversight visit queried why the runway had not been properly maintained these years after its expansion to take wide-bodied aircraft.
This perhaps has informed the plans by FAAN coupled with the approach of the Yuletide to commence repair work immediately to prevent any incident or accident on the runway.
