30th March, 2012
The agony of air passengers at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, southwest Nigeria, has worsened, P.M.NEWS can confirm.
Passengers last night, as in previous nights, contented with long queues, flight delays, commotion, anguish and exasperation caused by manual check-in.
Since Maevis Nigeria Limited was forceful ejected from Nigeria’s busiest airport by the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, the 62 fids screens at the check-in desks have all been disconnected with SITA, FAAN’s new contractors, unable to automate the system.
The fids screens provide information about airlines’ information, including seats, business and economy classes as well as logos.
“We are not surprised,” said Mr. Alasinrin Hammed, Head of operations at MAEVIS, who was in their office when FAAN stormed the premises with 80 men and took over the property and detained him for three hours.
“They are a communication provider to airlines and not a Common Use Terminal Equipment or CUTE provider. On top of that they are using our facilities,” he said.
Hammed explained that the agony being experienced at the Lagos airport is related to MAEVIS’ ejection.
“Before now, with our 2DBACODE compliant system which we deployed at the airport, passengers did their flight reservations, check-in and other similar things from home.
“All they did at the airport was simply bag drop off and move in. Now all these things are done at the airport and manually and as a result there are delays and passengers’ scrambling,” he said.
At MMIA last night and in previous evenings and nights, it was observed that the commotion starts from 5p.m. when international airlines begin checking in passengers.
With renovation work going on at the airport, the entire place looked like a big factory.
Mr. George Uriesi, FAAN Managing Director, did not return our text messages and Mrs. Folake Albert at the MMIA SITA’s office did not also answer our questions regarding the chaos at the airport.
Meanwhile, a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has ordered the Managing Director of Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, Mr. George Uriesi to appear before it next week Wednesday, 4 April, 2012, to answer to criminal charges of contempt of court.
Justice Binta Murtala-Nyako gave this ruling in the hearing of the contempt suit Maevis instituted against FAAN, regarding the court’s earlier order of 24 September, 2010, for the maintenance of res on the former’s airports’ concession contract.
Maevis is the concessionaire to FAAN on the provision of the Airport Operations Management System (AOMS) platform in four international airports in Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt.
The FAAN/ Maevis Airport Operations Management System (AOMS) project comprise the acquisition, installation, operation and management of world class Integrated Airport Operations Database (AODB), Common Use Terminal Equipment (CUTE), Computer Based Departure Control System Platform, Common Use Self Service (CUSS) Kiosk, Check-in desk and a fully automated Airport Pricing and Billing System (PBS).
—Simon Ateba