By Fiscalposts
Chairman of Air Peace, Allen Onyema, has decried the absence of transit facilities at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, saying it continues to frustrate indigenous airlines and undermine Nigeria’s chances of becoming an aviation hub.
Onyema, speaking on the challenges faced by local operators, at the League of Airport and Aviation Correspondent, LAAC, seminar held recently in Lagos, explained that passengers connecting through Lagos are subjected to avoidable costs and inconveniences because the airport lacks proper transit arrangements.
He cited an incident where Air Peace ferried passengers from Douala, Cameroon, to Dakar, Senegal, with a stopover in Lagos. Despite Lagos being only a transit point, the travelers were compelled to pay visa fees of about $400 each and pass through multiple checks by immigration, customs, quarantine, and other agencies, before rechecking in for their onward flights.
“Tell me if that person will fly your airline again to anywhere in the world? Let us call a spade a spade. The Lagos airport has no transit facility,” Onyema lamented.
According to him, this deficiency puts Nigerian airlines at a competitive disadvantage compared to carriers operating from other African hubs such as Togo, where a single airport effectively converges passengers from across the region for onward international connections.
Onyema, however, acknowledged that the current administration has begun taking steps to address the challenge. He noted that President Bola Tinubu and the Minister of Aviation have approved efforts to remodel the Lagos airport to accommodate proper transit facilities, with the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) already working on improvements.
“I am not a politician, but I must praise this regime. They are really helping the airlines. Things have changed, and I believe that in the next 22 months, this country will have a good airport that we will be proud of,” he said.
The Air Peace boss expressed optimism that with the right infrastructure, Nigerian airlines would be able to compete globally, predicting that “Ethiopian Airlines and the rest will be a thing of the past in the next 10 years.”