Foreign airlines using the country’s airports are poised to make a representation to the Minister of Aviation, Fidelia Njeze, over lack of quality service by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).
Their plan is sequel to three days of power failure that affected operations at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, and caused the country great embarrassment.
A source from one of the airlines told The Guardian that they were not getting value for the money paid for service at the airport, despite the $100, 000 each of the foreign airlines pays for the use of check-in counters to FAAN annually, through the concessionaire.
The airlines’ complaints include, poor handling of luggage, boarding passes and inefficient check-in counters and delay in passengers’ facilitations and security, among other issues that hinder operations at the nation’s gateways.
It was gathered that huge amount of money is being paid for the use of the counters at the airport, just as questions are being asked about the $35 FAAN collects from each of the passengers that travels through any of the country’s international airports on daily basis.
The question was provoked by the poor state of decay of infrastructure at the airport, which has been attributed to paucity of fund and the alleged apathy to infrastructure renewal by the Federal Government.
Available statistics show that over 5,000 people travel daily through the Lagos airport alone, excluding those of Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano airports.
Spokesman for FAAN, Akin Olukunle, said the foreign airlines were economical with the truth, adding that the case is not as they presented them.
He said the situation at the ports is not peculiar with Nigeria alone and that FAAN was working round the clock to improve on existing facilities and service delivery.
His words: “For everything to work, all stakeholders must put hands on deck to make things work. If all the airlines (foreign and local) pay their debts, things will improve. The airlines are owing and from time to time, we are reviewing our agreement with our concessionaires in line with global standards.”
Olukunle, however, described the claims of foreign airlines over poor service delivery as misplaced, noting that, Nigeria was a huge market where many of them ( the airlines) were making fortunes from their operations.
Meanwhile, travellers on Virgin Nigeria, who were scheduled to depart yesterday for Banjul, The Gambia, protested the cancellation of the airline’s flight to the country.
The affected passengers, who spoke to The Guardian, said they were shocked that the airline cancelled the flight without giving them prior notice.
Efforts to get official reasons for the cancellation were, however, not successful.
May162010