THE AFRICAN COURIER. Reporting Africa and its Diaspora! The African Courier is an international magazine published in Germany to report on Africa and the Diaspora African experience. The first issue of the bimonthly magazine appeared on the newsstands on 15 February 1998. The African Courier is a communication forum for European-African political, economic and cultural exchanges, and a voice for Africa in Europe.
International airlines operating from the old Terminal 1 of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport have been directed to relocate to the new Chinese-built Terminal 2. The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) issued the order following the directive of the new Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo.
Keyamo, during a visit to the Lagos airport had directed FAAN to relocate airlines to the new international terminal for the shutdown of the old terminal by 1 October 2023.
The decision to move the foreign airlines, including Lufthansa, Air France, KLM and Emirates, is to enable the government carry out a complete rehabilitation of the old terminal, which was opened in 1979. The FAAN said the new terminal has the capacity to accommodate the entire 21 airlines operating from the old terminal.
FAAN in its statement on the relocation said, “We intend to make this movement as seamless as possible but we appeal to all travellers to please be at the airport early enough to complete your check-in formalities on time in order not to miss your flights.”
The new terminal, which was completed last year, has yet to begin full international operations because its aviobridges cannot link to the big planes used by foreign airlines. As an interim measure, the government said it would provide shuttle buses to take international passengers to and from where the wide-body aircraft can park on the tarmac.
“So like it’s done in many other countries we are going to do emergency procurement to buy the big buses. So we are going to put them in buses and move them to where the big planes stop in an orderly fashion, both the arrival and departure so that Nigerians can have some sort of comfort with this new facility,” Minister Keyamo said.
Kola Tella
