The general manager, corporate communications of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mrs. Henrietta Yakubu, has said that the agency has stockpiled enough spare parts to maintain its equipment for comfort and easy facilitation of passengers.
Speaking in an interview in Lagos on Tuesday, Yakubu who debunked the allegation that the agency cannabilises its screening machines at its airports said FAAN had over the years been carrying out due maintenance on all its equipment at its airport.
“We don’t cannibalise our machines. We use them to screen passengers and baggage that come to the airport. FAAN is a very serious agency. We will not cannibalise machines. It is just because the machines were running all of the time and they just decided to breakdown. Some things happen that you don’t have a control over.
“Those things broke down not because of non-availability of spare parts. Machines do break down and human beings, too. The machines work daily for 24 hours. They just had technical glitches during the week and before the end of the day, one of the machines was fixed and it started working. And over the weekend, all the three machines were back in perfect working conditions.
“The issues we had with screening machines didn’t compromise security in anyway. All the security agents that are with us at the airport came to assist us and where they needed to do manual check-in, they did and no passenger misses his or her flight as speculated in some quarters. All the agencies cooperated with us to ensure that passengers met up with their schedules,” she said.
Yakubu also stated that the agency’s engineers carry out regular and periodic maintenance of its entire facilities and assured that FAAN would continue to create the enabling environment for travellers and other users of its facilities.
Furthermore, she said the FAAN management had inspected the facilities at the international wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos and expressed satisfaction with their performance.
She said the facilities at the airport had improved in the past six months, stressing that the agency would continue to enhance their functionalities.
“The management at international (Lagos Airport) have refurbished the toilets and improved on the lightings; what is left now is the tiling. There have been a lot of changes in the past six months. The general ambience at the airport has improved and lots of things have been remodelled at the terminal. The signage has been worked upon. This has led to seamless passenger facilitation,” she said.
