AS TRAVEL RESUMES: Airports In Nigeria Processed 6.4 Million Passengers In 6 Months
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Passengers facilitation at MMA 2, Lagos
Statistics of passengers who made use of the nation’s airports in the first six months of the year, January – June 2021, have revealed a meteoric rise to 50.5 per cent as against the same period in 2020 when the COVID- 19 scourge was raging.
According to the records made available by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, and as picked from the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, a total of 6,420,820 passengers travelled through domestic and international airports during the period under review.
The figure represents a 50.5 per cent increase over the 4,267, 409 passengers recorded same period, January – June 2020.
The records indicated that the figure comprised 5,513,098 passengers who made use of domestic airports, while 907,722 international travellers availed themselves of the international airports
Further breakdown showed that the flagship terminal, Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, Lagos, processed the highest number of international travellers with, 670,938 passengers, followed by Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, NAIA, Abuja with 225,985 in the first half of 2021.
NAIA Abuja topped the chart for domestic air travellers with 1,974,249 passengers and closely followed by Lagos airport with 1,786,236 passengers.
Others ranked as follow, Port Harcourt airport recorded 377,679 passengers; Enugu 231,669; and Kano 225,870 passengers.
Further analysis indicated that Lagos and Abuja airports alone accounted for 3,760,485 passengers out of a total of 5,513,098 or 68.2 per cent of all domestic arrivals and departures.
This indicated that 896,923 passengers out of a total of 907,722 or 98.8 per cent of all international passengers made use of the two airports in Lagos and Abuja.
Trailing Lagos airport, MMIA and Abuja airport, NAIA, was Malam Aminu Kano International Airport, MAKIA, Kano which came a distant third with only 10,119 international passengers in the first half of the year.
CARGO
On cargo, the five major international airports in Lagos, Enugu, Abuja Kano and Port Harcourt handled a total of 126.4 million kilograms of cargo between January and June this year.
The performance was about a 106 per cent increase over the 61.2 million recorded same period in 2020.
Lagos airport alone accounted for the lion share of 113.9 million kilograms of cargo or over 90 per cent of the total cargo throughput of the five international airports.
AIRMAIL
Lagos also accounted for 18.8 million kilograms out of 18.9 million kilograms or 98.9 per cent of all mails handled at the five international airports.
It is hoped that as soon as the numerous restrictions on air travel are removed, and airfare is also restricted from hitting the rooftop, air travel would experience an exponential increase because people are itching to visit their loved ones, go on vacation, close or open business deals the pandemic disrupted, ostensibly there would be a surge in both numbers of passengers and the volume of cargo a developing nation with over 200 million inhabitants such as Nigeria, would surely require for her social and economic growth and development.
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