THE capital of Nigeria is a picture of order compared with Lagos, the chaotic commercial hub. But whereas Abuja’s sweeping avenues are well maintained, the runway of its airport is potholed. Several aircraft have damaged their landing gear on the rutted tarmac. Facing the risk of a serious crash, the government is closing the whole place for six weeks from March 8th. “The entire architecture of the runway, it has failed,” says the minister of aviation.
The government hopes airlines will fly instead to Kaduna, a mere 230km (140 miles) north of Abuja, while the runway’s central portion is rebuilt, with other repairs taking six months in all. But a new terminal at Kaduna is still being built; right now it handles just 300 passengers a day, compared with 5,000 in Abuja. The foreign carriers that fly to the capital, including British Airways, Air France and Lufthansa, are queasy. “None of the European airlines will fly to Kaduna,” says an airline official.
Nigeria has a history of airport closures. In 2005 an Air France flight ploughed into a herd of cows on the runway at Port Harcourt, the country’s oil capital. Later that year...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2k7Oyob
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