Abuja Airport Runway Re-Opens

After 30 hours of facility
maintenance at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, which led to its closure, the runway has been re-opened for flight operations.
The coordinating General Manager, Aviation Parastatals, Mr Yakubu Dati, said last Tuesday in a statement made available to The Tide that the rehabilitation which started on July 5, 2014, was now open for business.
Mr Dati said reports from pilots who had used the runway indicated that the rehabilitation of a section of the runway was professionally executed and would enhance safety of flight operations on the runway.
According to him, the second phase of  rehabilitation of the remaining section of the runway would take place for another 30 hours this weekend, between Saturday 12, (2300 UTC) and Monday 14 (0500 UTC) 2014.
He said “A NO TAM (NOTICE to Airmen) to this effect has already been sent to all aircraft pilots and other relevant stakeholders, informing them of the impending closure.
“The runway rehabilitation is being done in two phases to minimize the inconvenience the closure would have on air passengers and aircraft operators if it was carried out at once”, Dati declared.
In another development the coordinating General Manager has said that the debt profile of the ministry of Aviation on aviation projects was recently clarified through statement on the ministry’s total indebtedness on aviation projects, particularly under the Aviation sector masterplan.
He added that the recent publication of the ministry’s indebtedness did not originate from his office. “I was quoted to have given the total indebtedness of the Ministry of Aviation as N148.23 billion, as against N174 billion earlier given by the Senate Committee on Aviation.
“The Ministry of Aviation recently issue a statement on the ministry’s total indebtedness on aviation projects especially under the aviation sector master plan. It is possible that the figures were sourced from an independent source , which  we have no control over”, Dati said.
It would be recalled that there were reports that debts incurred by the ministry from the remodeling of the airports projects across the country was N148 billion and not N174 billion as announced by the senate committee on Aviation which first announced the debts.

Scene of an accident on Airport Road in Benin recently.