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Chinelo Obogo
THE Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has said
passengers should brace up for
rigorous health checks at the
airports, flight delays and increase in airfare when restrictions are lifted and operations
resume post COVID-19.
Speaking at an aviation webinar organised by Women in
Aviation (WIA) Nigeria, with
the theme: Aviation: The New
Norm in the post COVID-19,
the General Manager, Corporate Affairs, Henrietta Yakubu,
said passengers should expect
delays and long hours of checks
and re-checks right from when
they arrive the airport and departs as the agency has put arrangements in place regarding
passenger facilitation and what
to expect.
She said escorts of Very Important Persons (VIPs) would
no longer be allowed to follow
their principals into the terminal and such principals would
be subjected to all its health
checks. She said passengers are
expected to leave home early
hours before their flights in order to go through the various
checks before entering the terminal and after.
“We are going to expect
flight delays; flights will experience delays because of checks
and re-checks. If you are travelling, I will expect a potential
traveler to leave home hours
before his flight, why do I say
this? Because there is going to
be a lot of checks in the front of
the terminal. We have been told
that some activities and procedures will take place in front of
the terminal. So air travelers
are expected to leave home very
early so that they can get to the
airport on time.”
The FAAN spokesperson
also explained that passengers
should expect that airlines
would charge more in terms of
airfare, adding that the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has said that there
would be 45 per cent increase
in fares.
Yakubu stated that the COVID-19 had brought a lot of
changes to air travel and to
ensure the safety of passengers and airport users the way
of doing things before have to
change, adding that the pandemic would make people cut
down on non-essentials and
lead to low demand of air travel.
At all airports, she said social
distancing would be 100 per
cent, temperature screening,
wearing of face masks, disinfection of shoes and luggage of
passengers would also be carried out 100 per cent regardless
of personalities.
“There will be floor markings indicating where each passenger will wait on the queue,
arriving passengers will also
be subjected to temperature
screening, physical distancing
too will be observed while passengers are waiting by the carousel to pick up their luggage.
Passengers are expected to arrive the airport with their face
masks on, their luggage and
pairs of shoes to be disinfected.
Passengers are expected to observe social/physical distancing.
“Passengers will subject
themselves to temperature
screening and departure halls
will be arranged in such a way
that physical distancing too will
be observed,” Yakubu said.
In her contribution, Ebele
Okoye, General Manager Customer Service/SERVICOM,
FAAN, harped on the decongestion of the terminal building especially outside where all sorts
of people who do not have business at the airport mill around.
According to her, in reducing contact, the days of opening
people’s bag at the airport to
search what is inside should be
done away with. Okoye urged
passengers to save themselves
the stress of coming to the airport to buy tickets rather they
buy their tickets online, check
in online and pay for their trolleys online to reduce the hours
they would have to spend carrying out these activities.
“Social security can be done,
online ticket purchase: I am
sure that the airline will notify
the people who purchase their
ticket online to check in online
and decongest the terminal
building. There would be no
hangers around, touts should
be out of the airport, anyone
not travelling should not be allowed to enter the airport. How
do passengers get their trolley?
They can pay online, you don’t
need contacts,” she said.
In a related development,
the government of Netherlands
on Tuesday, evacuated 71 of its
citizens from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport
(MMIA), Lagos. The Boeing
767-300 airlifted 71 passengers
from MMIA to Accra.
