Nigeria's major handling company, Skyway Aviation Handling Company (SAHCO) Plc, has made history by recording the highest aircraft turnaround time in Nigeria with Ethiopian Cargo airrcaft.

The company said it was able to achieve this feat, due to effective coordination and structured teamwork handling, "which can be described as one of the fastest aircraft turnaround in recent times."

Activity monitoring at the cargo apron of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lahos showed that it took operations staff of the ground handling company about 37 minutes to turn around an Ethiopian B777 cargo aircraft.

It was learnt that the global average for Long-haul flights generally requires between 90 minutes to two hours for a turnaround while short-haul flights range from 25 minutes to 35 minutes, depending on the airline and flight situations.

Although this is not the first time SAHCO has maintained such a fast turnaround time, Ethiopian airline staff present during the recent operation were full of admiration at the way SAHCO handled their flight, just as the handler has been doing in the past.

An insider who witnessed the recent operation while it lasted revealed, that normally it takes 1 hour 30 minutes to turn around a B777 with 37 pallets.

"With a record time of 37 minutes to turn around B777, which includes full offload and preparing the flight for departure, it now shows the preparedness of the operations department of SAHCO in readiness for the tax ahead in ground handling," he said.

It was learnt that SAHCO from recent trends have shown that it maintains control in not just the cargo handling but also aircraft turnaround.

SAHCO is a public liability company, which was incorporated as an Aviation Ground Handling Services Provider under the Nigerian Companies and Allied Matters Act of 1990.