Since March last year at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the international wing of the Malam Aminu Kano International Airport, MAKIA, has remained shut. The impact has been telling on travellers and business owners in Kano and now they are raising their voice for the airport to reopen fully.
Pressure has continued to mount on the federal government to reopen the international wing of the Malam Aminu Kano International Airport (MAKIA) in Kano State for commercial activities.
The pressure, from both political and business leaders in the North-West region of the country, is coming almost a year after the federal government shut down the airport, along with other international airports in the country. This happened in March 2020 at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos and the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja have since September been reopened for international flights.
The government’s promise that other international airports like MAKIA and Port Harcourt International Airport (PHIA) would be subsequently reopened has remained unfulfilled.
Months later, travellers have been complaining that they have to go to Lagos or Abuja to board a flight that would normally come to Kano.
This development means spending more money for travellers while other businesses like hotels and the likes that depend on the airport have been adversely affected in Nigeria’s centre of commerce.
The state and FG revenues are also affected, business experts noted.
“If you can allow domestic, why not international and this is even as Kano has less COVID-19 cases compared to Lagos and Abuja,” one of the travellers from Kano said.
This traveller also complained that since cargo flights are allowed, it made even little sense to still ban passenger flights.
He said this is even as cargos are coming in through the airport on a daily basis.
A staff of the airport, who does not want to be named, confirmed that an international airline (name withheld) brings two cargos daily since the closure of the international wing.
Credit: dailytrust.com
The post Pressure mounts on govt to re-open Kano airport appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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