The Director-General, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, Mr. Usman Muktar, says the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, runway is ready for operation and can be opened on Wednesday.
Muktar stated this while speaking with journalists during an inspection of the airport’s runway on Monday in Abuja.
The Abuja airport was closed on March 8 for six weeks to enable rehabilitation of its 3.6 kilometres runway to be carried out. Flight activities were consequently diverted to Kaduna International Airport during the period.
The Federal Government had announced that the airport would be reopened for normal operations on April 19.
Muktar disclosed that NCAA had concluded the second phase of inspection as follow-up to the recommendations made to the contractors to correct some areas of concern earlier identified by a team of experts.
According to him, they inspected yesterday, made some observations but the findings that were found were not safety critical and today it is found that they have been rectified.
“We have carried out the inspection and we have confirmed that the job has been done quite satisfactorily in line with the International Civil Aviation Organisation standard and recommended practices.
“So, the airport, the runway is very ready to accept flight operations safely.
“By this, we are declaring that the airport and its runway are quite operational at the time that has been determined as the official opening of this airport,” he declared.
(Punch)
