Four months after the closure of its airport to foreign airlines to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika has said the country will be resuming international flight operations on August 29, 2020.
The minister who disclosed this on his twitter handle, said the international flight will begin with the Lagos and Abuja airports, as it was done with domestic flights.
He said: “I am glad to announce the resumption of international flight from the 29th of August, 2020. Beginning with Lagos and Abuja as we did with the domestic flight resumption. Protocols and procedures will be announced in due course. We thank you for your patients”.
Meanwhile, the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria has initiated plans to ensure that the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, is fully prepared when the airport opens to international flights.
FAAN took the initiative to ensure that passengers are safe and secured when flight resumes.
To this end, some top Management staff of the agency today inspected Covid-19 facilities at the airport to ascertain their preparedness for resumption.
According to newsbulletinng.com, Manager, Public Affairs, Mrs. Henrietta Yakubu said the floor markings and barricades outside the terminal had been done.
“We are installing hand sanitizer dispensers, hand washing contactless taps and the luggage area disinfection is also been worked.”
Work on the male and female convenience as well as lighting are also reported to be ongoing.
In a related development, all evacuation flights introduced in the wake of coronavirus that led to closure of international airspace will airspace will come to an end on August 25th, 2020 following announcement of the resumption of international flights from August 29, 2020.
According to woleshadare.net, many countries are racing against time to conclude scheduled evacuation flights while allowing citizens to plan their scheduled travels themselves.
A source who works with a European country said they need to speed up all arrangements to bring to an end emergency flights in line with the pronouncement of the Federal Government to end such flights next week Tuesday.
Since the closure of airspace on March 23rd, 2020, many people only travelled under the emergency evacuation programme of the government which allowed operations of cargoes, medical equipment and travel by people who wanted to be with their families among others.
