Passengers attending to the baggage at the baggage claim area of GAT Murtala Muhammed Domestic Airport, Lagos
Following a recent approval by Federal Government for scheduled domestic flights to restart today, impressive passenger turnout and hitch free operations were today recorded as domestic flight operations resumed between Abuja and Lagos.
The Air Peace, Arik Air and Max Air were among the domestic airlines that operated took from the two domestic terminals of Murtala Muhammed Airport, Ikeja Lagos today.
While Arik Air departed at 7:30am, Air Peace departed at about 1 from the Lagos the arport. The two flight operated with almost full passenger load.
Speaking to journalists at the arrival hall of the Murtala Muhammed Domestic Airport Terminal One, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, Regional Manager, South West, Mrs Victoria Shinaba who expressed delight at the restart of scheduled domestic flight operations in the country after three months of suspension, said every plan put in place worked perfectly as planned.
“I am delighted and very happy that the skies are opened and we are opened again. We can go back to work. Everyone can go back to his or her work again. What gave me joy mostly is that everything went well as planned. Writing a plan is quite different from implementation. You can write a very beautiful plan or check list but when it comes to implementation, it becomes issues. But I realized that all that was put in place, everything, went according to the way it was planned,” elated Shinaba said.
On compliance and safety at the airport, she assured Nigerian air travellers of their safety at the airport.
“I want to assure that so many hardwork had gone into all these. I want to assure that among the criteria for the reopening of the airports are having implementations and compliance in place. We have a committee in place to ensure compliance. I want to assure Nigerians and the traveling public that they are safe with us. All that we put in place, we are to make sure that they are carrying out to the end. But there is a committee in place and there would be spot checks too just to ensure that what we are carrying out is what we are doing. I am very impressed with the passenger turnout. The Arik flight that left for Abuja left with almost full capacity. So it was on Air Peace flight. What we discovered is that people are eager to go out. People want to travel. People want to do business. I am very optimistic that we are not going to have any issue. Today we have three flights out of Lagos by Arik Air and Air Peace also has three flights. The Arik flights were, 11:00hours, 14:00hrs and 16:00hours
