Airlines, aviation agencies and service providers in the aviation industry are counting their losses following the closure of the Abuja airport to traffic following the aircraft incident involving a Saudi Arabian B747 which overshot the airport runway on Wednesday night resulting in the closure of the airport to traffic.
"The airport has been closed to all arriving aircraft following the incident," the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) said in a statement yesterday. In response to the shutdown directive, all domestic airlines had cancelled their flights into the Abuja airport, just as international flights going into Abuja were diverted to Lagos. It was learnt that the shutdown of the airport for over 20 hours and the inability of domestic and international flights to land and take off from the Abuja airport throughout Wednesday night up to late Thursday evening (when this report was filed) had led to a loss of about N1billion to the industry. The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) had incurred losses from landing and parking charges usually paid by both local and international airlines.
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