Passengers travelling to international destinations at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos spent less time checking in yesterday than one week ago when the withdrawal of services by Maevis Limited caused many hours of delay that airlines scheduled to take off by 10.30 pm were delayed for four hours. Maevis was providing the Airport Operations Management System (AOMS) that included the Common Use Terminal Equipment (CUTE) which makes passenger check in process easy and quick before its services were terminated in the midnight of March 23, 2012.
Although checking in eased on Sunday but both passengers and passenger handling officials still faced difficulties, including identification of airlines at the counters and confirmation of passengers tickets by the airline and passenger handling officials because the TV monitors that bear the banner signs of the airlines checking in and identify economy and business classes were still off.
A passenger handling officials confirmed to THISDAY checking in had become easier as Societe Internationale de telecommunication Aeronautique (SITA), which took over from Maevis had “fully installed their equipment but they are yet to integrate the airlines’ system into it.”
The effect of this was that airlines officials must have to cross-check the ticket, even when a passenger had checked in online.
A passenger on British Airways flight told THISDAY that when she came to check in her luggage the airline official insisted that she must present her ticket even when she had already checked in online and showed them she had done so.
“They had to crosscheck everything to make sure it was me (laughs). And you know that if they are not thorough some people can impersonate and travel, I think that was what they were preventing but I nearly got angry, but I checked myself,” the passenger quipped.
A passenger handling officials told THISDAY that the lucky thing was that the airlines’ signs were still in the system so it was easy to log in and also the airlines have maintained particular counters over time so it was easy to locate them, although they wrote signs indicating their positions.
“It is very important that those monitors identifying the airlines are working again. Regular travellers can easily identify the airlines, which maintain certain positions at the counters but it takes new passengers time to locate the airlines they are travelling with,” the passenger handling officer said.
THISDAY observed British Airways, Lufthansa Airlines, Delta Airlines, Arik Air and others checking in their passengers and to identify their airlines they put on roller banners and other signs declaring their names so that passengers would not miss them.