Reps urge FAAN to put measures in place to curb power outage at airports

Nnolim Nnaji, Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Aviation, has urged the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to take immediate steps to prevent a repeat of the power outage that occurred at the D finger arrival of the international wing of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA) in Ikeja, Lagos, last week.

On the night of Friday, April 1, 2022, at about 11:15 p.m., the D finger arrival was put into darkness for over 15 minutes while the disembarked Air France passengers were through facilitation.

In his opening remarks at the meeting in Abuja with FAAN management and the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Nnaji said the committee had no choice but to ask the two organizations for explanations on the occurrence after a troubling incident.

The committee chairman expressed his displeasure with the development, stating that a major airport such as the MMIA should have standby generators that would automatically turn on if the public power supply failed.

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The problem was caused by heavy rain that happened that night, which damaged the subterranean cables that carry power to the afflicted finger, according to FAAN’s Managing Director, Captain Rabiu Yadudu.

Captain Yadudu also revealed that the Murtala Mohammed Airport’s international terminal has six 4.8 KVA generators that serve as backup power sources and that they often switch on automatically within five seconds if the national grid is disrupted.

He further indicated that the outage lasted approximately fifteen minutes until the light was restored and that the incident was exaggerated by social media.

Rabiu further said that the authority’s biggest difficulty is that certain underground cables are damaged and need to be replaced entirely because they were installed over 40 years ago.

In the same vein, NCAA Director-General Captain Musa Nuhu stated that no major renovations have been carried out on the terminal since it was completed in 1978.

He stated that the only way to solve the problems at the terminal is to completely remodel it and rewire the cables, which he claims has been a recurring issue.

Nnaji, on the other hand, believes that FAAN and the NCAA should meet and come up with lasting solutions to the problem in order to avoid future embarrassments like the one that occurred on April 1, 2022.