FG set to announce when airports ‘ll reopen

After a three months lull in domestic commercial flight operations following the lockdown occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, and the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 has expressed satisfaction with the arrangements and level of preparedness exhibited by agencies in the aviation industry for the restart of domestic flights operations into select airports across Nigeria.

The Minister also revealed that the much talked-about palliatives proposed for the sector will be made known as earliest next week just as the industry geared up to resume flight and other associated services.

Senator Sirika spoke alongside National Coordinator of the PTF Dr. Sani Aliyu in Lagos after the duo carried out a dry test flight from Abuja to Lagos to ascertain the level preparations in both prime aerodromes.

Sirika said “I’m not 100 per cent satisfied but I am 90 per cent satisfied and why did I say so? I said so because our airports both Lagos and Abuja, we have marked them clearly,  we have trained our staff to ensure the physical distance, we have provided COVID-19 compliant toilets. We have provided for hand sanitizers, we guided people efficiently. We reduced the amount of people the Co-Bus we take..”

He said, “Government is coming with the palliative very soon in conjunction with the CBN and the Ministry of Finance, by next week we will come out with the amount and the palliative will be announced within the week. Within the economic sustainability plan. It will go round the entire civil aviation but may not be necessarily cad like people expect.”

Speaking further, he explained that “We want to assure the public that once we restart, there will be sanitizers, there will be where to pick the bags. We have trained our staff to ensure the physical distance, we have guided people sufficiently. We have reduced the amount of people that are on hold.

I am very satisfied and happy the remaining one which is the 5% is to see these surfaces cleaned continuous and that will happen once we restart we are ready with the chemicals and all and the other one is the baggage and we will see how that will be by the time we recommence. So for me I am 90-95% happy that we are good to go.”

“90% of what we do in civil aviation is not seen by people like the Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range ( VOR) and other safety systems put in place but aviation is ready, I don’t want to give a timeline but when we are set to open, we open.”he declared.

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