Checking in and other facilitation activities were 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.

Eyewitnesses told THISDAY that 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.

Source: Thisday Newspaper, 05 March, 2013