Kenneth Ehigiator
24 December 2008
The Port Harcourt Inter-national Airport which was closed for rehabilitation about two years ago would be re-opened for full operations today.
Although the airport was re-opened for daylight operations a few months ago, night operations were suspended because the airfield lighting had not been installed.
Owing to pressures from Nigerians who have had to come to Lagos to connect flight overseas and the oil companies, former Transport Minister, Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke, opened the rehabilitated runway only for daylight and domestic operations.
Aviation Minister, Mr. Babatunde Omotoba, had while declaring open runway 18L of the Murtala Mohammed Airport, said the Port Harcourt Airport would be deployed for full operations within the week.
He told reporters that installation of the airfield lightings were to have been completed this week to make way for day and night operations at the airport.
Vanguard gathered yesterday that the minister would storm Port Harcourt this morning with aviation parastatal chiefs to declare the runway open for full operations.
What this means is that foreign airlines which suspended operations into the airport when it was closed for rehabilitation would resume flight operations from there.
Lufthansa Airlines, Virgin Atlantic and British Airways are some of the foreign airlines that operate into the airport.
The Port Harcourt International Airport was closed down over two years ago for rehabilitation, in the aftermath of the Sosoliso crash which was blamed on inadequate facilities at the airport, while all domestic flights were diverted to neighbouring Owerri airport.
Although work on the rehabilitation started over two years ago, it was midway abandoned by the contractor, Julius Berger Construction Company, whose personnel were chased out of sight by militants operating in the Niger Delta.
It took the intervention of Rivers State government to re-mobilise the contractors to site, and it also put at the disposal of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) some N2 billion to assist the rehabilitation efforts.
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