The Manager, South West Airports, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, Mrs. Victoria Shinaba says the Murtala Mohammad International airport MMIA Lagos, witnessed increased growth in passenger, cargo and aircraft movement in 2019.
A breakdown of the statistics shows that passenger movement for 2019 is put at approximately 7.319 million compared to 2018 with the figure put at 6.862 million with the variance of 456,993 with a 6.66 percent increase.
According to Shinaba, “Cargo was over 187.49 million in 2019 while 2018 157.62 million with a difference of 298,720 and 19% increase.”
“Aircraft movement in 2018 was 91,621 while in 2019 96,621 with 5.20%.”, she added.
She explained that the airport had continued to record tremendous improvement with the ongoing constructions work, adding that the security issues witnessed last year were being addressed by the government.
She noted that safety issues would continue to remain paramount and all shortcomings would be studied with a view to adjusting them.
Shinaba said, ” lessons have been learned from last years security challenges and measures are being taken to address the lapses.”
The MMIA airport Manager lists these measures to include increase in patrol on air side with military men drafted to areas where intruders were using to enter the airport and the height of the fences have been
raised with more blocks and spikes on them.
” The airport fence has become low due to the ongoing road construction along the Agege motorway, so what we have done is to put additional blocks and spikes on them to increase the height, the airport is surrounded by houses at Shasha, Akonwojo, Ejigbo, Ajao estate and others”.
On the new terminal building under construction, the MMIA Manager explained that the terminal when operational would provide seamless passenger facilitation, adding that a total refurbishment of the over 40 years old MMIA terminals would then commence.
Shin-Aba noted that old terminal was over-stretched, saying that it was built to accommodate 2 million passengers but now accommodate 7million “a
total refurbishment will be done on the old terminal because it is over 40 years old and it’s structure does not confirm with the security in ground today”.
