Regional manager South South and South East airports Mr. Felix Akinbuni
To boost its non-aeronautical revenue generation, the Management of the Port Harcourt international airport is to embark on the construction of mega shopping mall.
The Regional manager South South and South East airports Mr. Felix Akinbuni who disclosed this in Port Harcourt in a chat with newsmen said, the Management of the airport was moving in an uncommon way to get a business plaza, first of its kind in the country.
According to Akinbumi when completed and put into use, it would generate uncommon revenue for the authority.
The Airport Manager disclosed that, domestic passengers traffic had been growing steadily, adding that, the terminal had even become too small to handle all the passengers as a result due to the number of operating aircraft arriving at a time.
“Domestic operations has been encouraging and tremendous.We are expecting same at the international terminal very soon”.
Akinbumi noted, that a steady progress was being made at the international wing when Turkish Airline and Ethiopian airlines operated in 2019 but with the covid-19 in 2020 activities were brought to a halt.
He said this had remained a great challenge in 2020 but picked up a little in 2021 when restrictions on movement were lifted.
According to the Regional Manager, with the coming of Qatar airways this month and Turkish in the second quarter international activities would pick up again.
On land encroachment on the airport land by the residents, he said, was a great challenge stressing that, correspondences have been written to the headquarters and dialogue was on going.
Akinbumi decried the absence of a dedicated power line to the airport but revealed that power supply to the airport was fairly stable except when there was maintenance or transmission challenges.
On the issue of security, Akinbumi said, there was a joint patrol team comprising security personnel at the airport to raid the area of unwanted elements.
He said access cards of some government officials caught for extortion have been retrieved, adding that, AVSEC review its CCTV cameras regularly and those apprehended were punished after withdrawing their On Duty cards.
