The federal government has kept its promise to reopen the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport on schedule after the rehabilitation of the runway of the airport, which lasted for six weeks.
Indeed, well ahead of the planned official re-opening of the airport’s runway on the 19th of April, Ethiopian Airlines flight A350 landed at 12:07pm on Tuesday the 18th of April. The airport was opened at 11am.
The suscessful landing of the Ethiopian Airline’s flight indicates that the Abuja airport is officially ready for use after its closure for repairs.
Hadi Sirika, minister of state for Aviation, reopened the the airport. Sirika, while addressing newsmen in Abuja, said he decided to reopen the airport since the runway rehabilitation had been completed on schedule.
He added that even though the reopening date was supposed to be Wednesday, it was not bad to reopen a day earlier. He commended Nigerians and air travellers for their resilience during the six weeks closure of the airport.
“April 19 is the due date, for us to conclude and open the airport based on our programme of work; we are able to deliver the project earlier than anticipated, so we can open it. Here we are today; we set out to achieve that target and we achieved it. We thank Allah for His guidance and we are happy and thank his Excellency for his support. I also wish to thank all my colleagues who did it all and the media and the Nigerian people for standing by us,” he said.
The Abuja airport was shut for six weeks to enable Julius Berger to repair its failed runway while Abuja-bound air traffic was diverted to Kaduna during the period.