FAAN begins relocation of airlines to new international wing

At the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has started moving foreign airlines to the new international terminal.

It has only been a week since Festus Keyamo, the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, instructed FAAN’s management to ensure that foreign airlines relocate from the old terminal to the new aerodrome, which former President Muhammadu Buhari dedicated on March 22, 2022.

The FAAN’s Director of Public Affairs & Consumer Protection, Abdullahi Yakubu-Funtua, said on Thursday night that the organisation had switched the processing of passengers to the new international terminal, effective right away.

Yakubu-Funtua stressed that the unlucky fire incident that happened at the international terminal on Wednesday was believed to be the reason for the hurried move to the new international terminal.

“The Honourable Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr. Festus Kayamo during his maiden visit to Lagos airport had directed FAAN to relocate airlines to the new international terminal for the shutdown of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport Terminal One by October 1, 2023, with a view to improving passenger experience and for the total overhaul of the terminal.

Keyamo has granted FAAN until October 1, 2023, to transfer all flight operations to the new international terminal and abandon the existing terminal so that it could be renovated.

The avaition minister lamented that the new terminal, which was part of the terminals built with Chinese loans and counterpart funding from the Federal Government, was drastically underutilised and that the older terminal had grown deteriorated, smelly, and out of date and therefore required urgent rehabilitation.