No fewer than 6,261 aircraft took off and landed at the General Aviation Terminal of the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos in the last six months of 2020.
Also, 551,381 passengers passed through the terminal within the same period under review.
Mr. Adekunle Aderibigbe, the Terminal Manager, GAT, told aviation journalists at his office over the weekend that the industry has however recorded slight improvement from the lockdown period earlier in the year.
The pandemic, which dwarfed most activities at the nation’s airports, including the GAT for 2020.
Aderibigbe in the statistics said that inbound passengers were 270,828, while departures stood at 280,552 passengers within the period under review.
Besides, he explained that 3,068 aircraft landed at the airport between July and December 2020, while 3,193 aircraft took off from same airport during the same period.
The terminal manager emphasised that initially passengers turnout at the commencement of flight operations after the easing of the lockdown was not encouraging, but disclosed that gradually picked especially during the yuletide.
He noted that airlines last December witnessed surge in passengers’ traffic, but were able to manage their passengers as more aircraft were deployed to accommodate passengers.
According to him, safety, security and comfort of passengers remained the priority of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria FAAN) especially while complying with the COVID-19 protocols, adding that adamant passengers were forced to comply as directed by the management of the agency.
The terminal manager lamented about the attitude of some irate passengers who he said refused to adhere to the rules and regulations on COVID-19 protocols.
He however noted that sanity had returned to almost every point in the nation as the COVID-19 has made people to sit tight on their jobs and maintaining all necessary protocols.
He explained that the entire facilities put in place as a result of the outbreak of the pandemic were being maintained, stressing that with the second wave, the compliance team to the protocols had been going around to ensure that nobody was left out.
