►Chairman, Airline Operators of Nigeria, AON, Captain Nogie Meggison has said there is no sufficient airplane parking space at both the local and international wings of the Muritala Muhammed International Airport,MMIA, Lagos.
►Captain Meggison stated this while presenting a paper at a seminar titled “Aviation Infrastructure and Policy As Stimulus For Economic Growth In Nigeria” held in Lagos.
►Captain Meggison stated this while presenting a paper at a seminar titled “Aviation Infrastructure and Policy As Stimulus For Economic Growth In Nigeria” held in Lagos.
He said this lack of space has contributed to airplane crash incidences within the airport and flight delays.
According to him, “Airplane parking is becoming a nightmare, and ground accidents have tripled over the past 3 years. 30 percent of cargo planes cannot find spaces to park at the cargo ramp. They are sent to international or have to park on the taxi way temporarily. The ramp has not been expanded in the past three decades.”
He added that this problem has forced airlines to resort to parking their planes and even boarding passengers the next day inside their maintenance hanger. This has resulted to chaotic early morning flight departures, especially at MMA
Meggison said, “At MMA 1, the ramp can only take 6 airplanes. Arik’s 11 early morning departures is a problem. As of now, Arik not only uses the maintenance apron for boarding but now have to park airplanes inside their hangar to board passengers. With Air Peace joining soon with 7 airplanes, one can only imagine the impending chaos.”
He further said that, “MMA 1 only has one processing point/scanning machine with Arik’s 11 early morning departures by 7:30am, these bottlenecks cause delayed flights through the day. MMA 2 has 2 processing points/scanning machines to process passengers, with about 15 departures before 8am. And more airlines coming up, the parking space and passenger processing bottlenecks and drama can only get worse.”
According to him, “Airplane parking is becoming a nightmare, and ground accidents have tripled over the past 3 years. 30 percent of cargo planes cannot find spaces to park at the cargo ramp. They are sent to international or have to park on the taxi way temporarily. The ramp has not been expanded in the past three decades.”
He added that this problem has forced airlines to resort to parking their planes and even boarding passengers the next day inside their maintenance hanger. This has resulted to chaotic early morning flight departures, especially at MMA
Meggison said, “At MMA 1, the ramp can only take 6 airplanes. Arik’s 11 early morning departures is a problem. As of now, Arik not only uses the maintenance apron for boarding but now have to park airplanes inside their hangar to board passengers. With Air Peace joining soon with 7 airplanes, one can only imagine the impending chaos.”
He further said that, “MMA 1 only has one processing point/scanning machine with Arik’s 11 early morning departures by 7:30am, these bottlenecks cause delayed flights through the day. MMA 2 has 2 processing points/scanning machines to process passengers, with about 15 departures before 8am. And more airlines coming up, the parking space and passenger processing bottlenecks and drama can only get worse.”
