NANTA wants airports redesigned to connect int’l, domestic terminals
President of the National Association of Nigerian Travel Agencies (NANTA) Mr. Bankole Bernard has said there is need for the Federal Government to connect the international and domestic terminals of the nation’s airports for ease of travels, especially at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) Lagos.
Many passengers at MMIA, the busiest airport in Nigeria, have had to complain about arriving at the international wing and facing traffic gridlock to connect the domestic terminal for the local flight.
Bankole, who is the Managing Director of Finchglow Group, noted that no Nigerian airport has seamless international-domestic connectivity.
He said that could discourage foreign carriers from partnering with the domestic operators.
Bankole, who was speaking with newsmen, also decried the neglect of the downstream sector of the aviation industry run by travel agencies which support the aviation value chains.
According to him, government must
make deliberate efforts to develop the nation’s aviation industry to international standard to attract more foreign direct investments.
He said: “When you do not design the terminal to create an interline for passengers; for instance if you arrive Nigeria today and you need to go to Enugu, you are going to come out of the airport completely, go into town and go into another terminal to check in your luggage, it’s not like that in other parts of the world.
“Take Johannesburg for instance; they tell you to pick up your bag and check it in within the same terminal. So, we don’t have such here, if we don’t have such here, how is the international flight going to interline with our carriers? By the time the luggage goes into town, who is going to take responsibility for it? It’s going to be tough so we need to look into some of our policies.
“Until the Federal Government ensures connectivity between international and domestic terminals in the country, the dream of any Nigerian airport, especially the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) becoming a hub, will continue to be unrealistic.”