General Manager, Public Affairs, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Akin Olukunle, has said Port Harcourt International Airport, closed about two years ago for rehabilitation, will become operational in the first quarter of 2008.
Olukunle said at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, that major areas of the airport such as the terminal building, airfield lightings and water supply system are already being handled by various contractors.
He said Julius Berger Construction Company, which is the major contractor at the airport, has begun preliminary works on the terminal building, while ADB Company had moved to the site for installation of airfield lightings, adding that the power supply system is being handled by Belform Limited, another contractor to FAAN.
Olukunle said FAAN had envisaged that the airport would be ready by December 2007, since a lot of improvements had taken place there, but the Minister for Transportation, Diezani Alison-Madueke, said when she visited the site that full operations would resume next year.
” Julius Berger and other companies are still working on the airport, hopefully, operations would resume by the first quarter of next year, because every part of the airport has already been contracted out,” he said.
Work at the airport suffered a set back June this year, when the main contractor, Julius Berger withdrew from site over security threats from militants and resumed after government assurance that its workers would be safe.
Afetr the airport was closed by NCAA, FAAN decided to carry out complete overhaul of the airport, which was known for obsolete facilities and dilapidated runway and flights into the airport diverted to Owerri Airport, while aircraft with turbo prop aircraft land at the Airforce Base.
Oct22007