Anambra International Cargo and Passenger Airport, Umueri has continued its impressive run with improved aircraft traffic and passenger numbers.
Information from the airport management indicates that since the airport was approved by the regulator, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), for commercial operations, from the 7th of December, 2021, up to the 31st of January 2022, a total of 376 flights and 11,860 passengers have been recorded at the airport for scheduled and non-scheduled operations.
The Anambra Commissioner for Works, Mr. Marcel Ifejiofor, made the disclosure recently in Umueri, near Awka, where the airport is located.
The newly inaugurated Anambra Cargo Airport recorded 142 flights with 3,865 passengers landing and taking off from the airport after one month of the opening of the facility.
Mr. Ifejiofor noted that although the flight and passenger figures surpassed projections when compared with the airport’s contemporaries, it would have been more, if more airlines were using the airport.
So far, only Air Peace and United Nigeria Airlines are landing and taking off at the Anambra Airport.
Ifejiofor, who is also the head of the Anambra State Airport Project Committee, said the airport contributed significantly to easing passenger traffic during the yuletide.
He said passengers who would have landed at Asaba and Enugu Airports flew straight into the Anambra airport.
“Anambra Airport is a hub, there is no place you can’t go to in Nigeria from Anambra State. We are just scratching the surface in terms of activities that will take place here.”
Also speaking, Mr. Martin Nwafor, the Managing Director of the Anambra Airport Management Authority, said the service quality at the airport had continued to improve.
Nwafor said all the regulatory agencies in the aviation sector, including the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, Nigerian Meteorological Agency, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, among others, were now domiciled at the airport.
He said there had not been any issue since the opening of the airport and that the airport management was prepared to handle issues as they arose.
Nwafor said that workers deployed to the airport were trained and had been given sufficient orientation on how to do their jobs.