Passengers miss flights over faulty conveyor belt at Lagos airport

Passengers using the old terminal of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) have decried the breakdown of facilities at the terminal which is causing flight delays and slowing down facilitation.

Of particular concern, according to the passengers, is the non-functionality of the terminal’s conveyor belt used to move passenger luggage in and out of aircraft.

Many departing airlines continue to experience delays of more than two hours following the dilapidated conveyor belt at the old terminal.

Daily Trust reports that many airlines are yet to relocate to the new ultra-modern terminal commissioned in March, 2022, by former President Muhammadu Buhari due to the apron size which cannot accommodate wide-bodied aircraft.

Major foreign airlines, including British Airways, Lufthansa and KLM-Air France, using big airplanes and dream liners have not relocated to the terminal and continue to operate at the old terminal built over 40 years ago.

However, the facility has suffered huge dilapidation as many passengers experience delays in baggage processing and facilitation.

Hundreds of passengers on a KLM-Air France flight to Amsterdam missed their connecting flights after they experienced over two hours delay while trying to load their luggage into the aircraft.

Daily Trust learnt that apart from departing passengers, arriving travelers also spend hours at the airport waiting to retrieve their luggage, with many of them ripped off in the process.

One of the passengers who narrated their ordeal to our correspondent yesterday said that after the flight from Lagos was delayed for two hours due to the breakdown of the conveyor belt, they ended up missing connecting flights in Amsterdam.

He said, “I was on KLM and we departed with a two-hour delay while Air France was still on ground when we departed. So, I don’t know how much delay they experienced.

“The baggage belts were not working when we checked in and the Captain kept apologising after we boarded and had to wait on the aircraft for almost 2 hours while they kept loading the luggage.

“When we got to Amsterdam and some passengers saw the long layover times they had to wait they became agitated and the police had to be called to calm things down. I was lucky. My 7am flight from Amsterdam to London was rebooked to 1pm, while others had the 8pm flight and some were booked to travel via Dublin, which would take a day.”

An airline official who works at the MMIA said the delay caused by the baggage conveyor at the E Finger of the old terminal had become a daily occurrence, suggesting that it was better to shut down the E-Finger and use buses to convey luggage.

Speaking with our correspondent, President of the Association of Foreign Airlines Representatives in Nigeria (AFARN), Kingsley Nwokoma, decried the dilapidated facilities at the old terminal and charged the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to fix them.

He said network punctuality was key in airline business and lamented that many airlines that flew into the country got unnecessarily delayed because of the facilities.

Nwokoma also confirmed that while the new terminal has state-of-the-art facilities for passenger and baggage processing, the absence of adequate apron space to accommodate big aircraft was a major safety concern that had not been addressed.

“The parking spaces should be good enough to accommodate the aircraft. Avio Bridges have to be in perfect condition to accommodate the big aircraft. The belt must be world-class, and passengers should get their luggage as soon as they arrive,” he added.

Secretary General of Aviation Roundtable and Safety Initiative, Mr Olumide Ohunayo, in a chat with our correspondent, said while the baggage belt was not a standalone revenue earner for FAAN, it was part of the facilitation value chain which must be in good condition.

He said, “So if your conveyor belts are not good, you delay passenger, you destroy their luggage, you delay the arrival of passengers, it affects the passengers’ psychic, processing, facilitation and this might make passengers to want to avoid the airport and once the passengers begin to avoid the airports, you begin to lose revenues generally.

“So, we need to work on it. Any of the terminals that have issues with their conveyor belt, we need to do everything possible to work on it, repair and even change it entirely. It is a recurring decimal at MMIA and FAAN needs to stand up and deal with it decisively.”

He said airlines that refused to relocate their operations to the new terminal should not be blamed because of the lack of space for parking of big aircraft.

Ohunayo decried the failure of the federal government to expand the apron despite the many demolition carried out, saying appropriate punishment should be meted out to the government officials or Ministers responsible for the design error in the new terminal.

Director of Corporate Affairs and Consumer Protection in FAAN, Abdullahi Funtua said the issue is being addressed by the management.

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