The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has said that the installation of lights on Lagos airport runway 18L will be completed between June and July 2022. Managing Director of the Authority, Capt. Rabiu Hamisu Yadudu, spoke in Lagos last week.
According to him, the Authority is faced with many challenges, especially aging facilities, adding, however, that runway 18L lighting is a priority. “Some of the equipment we have are aging. Some of them are even 40 years and above.
As the current management in FAAN, we want to make sure that anybody who comes as the next managing director of FAAN, we want to make their job easier.
We are going out of our way to make sure we do our own. Now, we are fixing the 18L. You cannot land on 18L at night, now, that the contractor is back. “He was supposed to finish in March, but the cables he had were of low quality and we are insisting on original ones.
So, he said, he will fix it by June or latest July. So, after nine years, we are fixing some of these things that were abandoned and we are also starting new ones, including baggage handling, the central cooling system,” he said. Yadudu disclosed that the whole airfield lighting system would be overhauled as it has not been done in the last 42 years.
“We contacted the airfield lighting company in Europe to fix the new ones and overhaul the whole airfield lighting system, there was no overhaul in 42 years. That is also in the process. We are fixing things so that those that come after us will get things easier,” he added.
In 2008, the 2.7 km runway ’18 Left’ domestic wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Ikeja, was rehabilitated for use, but without any airfield lighting, leading to only daylight operations in the nation’s busiest airport and causing untold hardship to airlines for 12 years as the situation compelled domestic aircraft at MMA to burn extra fuel to taxi down to their various terminals before disembarking their passengers.
