Federal Government Fixes Dates To Reopen Kano, Enugu And PH Airports For International Flights

 

The federal government has announced dates for the reopening of Kano, Enugu, and Port Harcourt airports, for international flights.

Speaking at the weekly briefing of the presidential taskforce (PTF) on COVID-19 on Monday, Hadi Sirika, minister of aviation, said Kano, Port Harcourt and Enugu airports will be reopened for international flights on April 5, April 15 and May 3 respectively.

There have been calls for the federal government to reopen the international wing of the airports, since it was shut in 2020 as part of efforts to curtail the spread of COVID-19.

The minister had stated the decision to suspend worldwide flights in Kano — as is the case with the airports in Enugu and Port Harcourt — changed into for health and protection motives.

“There had been agitations for us to open Port Harcourt, Enugu and Kano and of path, it takes a amazing amount of work, appropriation inside the management of this virus on the way to open ore departure up different regions of access,” the minister said.

“We will do best at a time what will be desirable for the management of this virus, it's miles very painful specifically for us in civil aviation to have our airports closed and our direct supply of earnings affected as we're locating it extraordinarily hard to pay salaries.

“So, we shut down the airport with wonderful care and when we close down the airports, we had to keep them going for walks otherwise the facilities in there will get dilapidated for loss of usage. So, it's miles in our interest to keep them open but regrettably, we couldn’t because of our collective health and items of the united states of america and those that do commercial enterprise with Nigeria.

“Now that we have most of the matters in region because of the work via the PTF, we can be opening Enugu airport at the third of May 2021. We could be opening Kano on the 5th of April, 2021 and Port Harcourt on the 15th of April, 2021 for global flights.”

Sirika delivered that everything important for the easy operations of the airports will be put in location earlier than the scheduled date.