yesterday night paralysed at the Murtala Muhammed
International Airport, Lagos as a result of intermittent
power cuts, which forced international airlines
travelling to different parts in the world to suspend
activities.
The power outages also hampered the safety of
passengers and security measures at the airport, in
addition to causing delays in the departure time of
flights.
the power cuts were experienced three times, with
the last outage lasting for about an hour.
Some of the eyewitnesses also said the passengers
who had gone through security screening to the
airside had to wait at the boarding gates until
electricity was restored, while those in queues
waiting to be checked in had to wait too, thus
delaying flights.
A traveller said there was always panic any time
there was an outage as the passengers who had
more than one bag struggled to hold on to them.
"Since I came to the terminal, there have been power
outages three times. The first time, it affected the
whole airport but when power returned, only a part of
the airport was lit.
"They have taken the electricity for the third time
and as I speak to you, they have not restored it to all
the parts of the airport. The E gate is in darkness so
we are all waiting at the boarding gate," the
passenger said.
Reacting to the incident, the General Manager,
Corporate Communications of the Federal Airports
Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Yakubu Dati, said the
outage which was caused by epileptic power supply
from the dedicated lines at Egbin and Ejigbo power
stations, was caused by the thunderstorm that
occurred last night.
He explained that when there was a power outage
from one of the dedicated lines, FAAN switched over
to the back-up line, which took a few minutes before
electricity was restored to the airport.
He added that the terminal has a standby generator
but did not explain why it was not switched on.
"The regional manager of the airport told me that
each outage did not last more than two minutes. We
are doing all that we can to restore power. I believe
that it was the rainstorm that caused the outage,"
Dati said.
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN
Post a Comment