BySODIQ OYELEKE

The Federal Government has fixed dates for the reopening of Kano, Port Harcourt, and Enugu airports for international flights.

Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, announced the dates during the weekly briefing of the Presidential Task Force on Monday.

He said Enugu airport is planned to be reopened on May 3, 2012; Kano, April 5, 2021; and Port Harcourt will be reopened on April 15, 2021 for international flights.

He said, “There have been agitations for us to open Port Harcourt, Enugu and Kano and of course, it takes a tremendous amount of work, appropriation in the management of this virus to be able to open ore departure up other areas of entry.

“We will do only at a time what will be good for the management of this virus, it is very painful especially for us in civil aviation to have our airports closed and our direct source of income affected as we are finding it extremely difficult to pay salaries.

“So, we shut down the airport with great care and when we shut down the airports, we had to keep them running otherwise the facilities in there will get dilapidated for lack of usage. So, it is in our interest to keep them open but unfortunately, we couldn’t because of our collective health and goods of the country and those that do business with Nigeria.

“Now that we have most of the things in place due to the work by the PTF, we will be opening Enugu airport on the 3rd of May 2012. We will be opening Kano on the 5th of April, 2021 and Port Harcourt on the 15th of April, 2021 for international flights.” (The PUNCH)