Barely two months after the approval of Port Harcourt Airport to resume international flights operations, the resumptions were still delayed due to curfew introduced by the state government to check insecurity.
The Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria(FAAN) 's Regional General Manager for the South-South and South-East in charge of the airport, Mr. Felix Akinbinu disclosed in his statements.
According to him, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) had given approval for international flights to resume, following the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions, but the curfew has been preventing international airlines from operating at the airport.
In April, the Rivers State Government imposed a state-wide night curfew in all the 23 local government councils of the state to check the attacks on security agencies in the state. The statement had specified that human and vehicular movements were banned in the state from 10:00 pm to 6:00 am from April 29 till further notice.
The Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) explained that most international flights took off in the night from several destinations and arrived at the airline's center in the morning where the passengers connecting flights to other destinations could do so.
Mr. Felix Akinbinu says "there has been some growth in passenger traffic since domestic flights resumed but noted that the airport would create more revenue if international flights had resumed."
He also stressed further that "there has been some growth in passenger traffic since the Covid-19 restrictions on domestic operations were lifted and we expect more. I can't give the exact figures for passenger traffic but I can say for a fact that there has been an increase especially as more airlines are coming in. We have about seven airlines operating in Port Harcourt now and Ibom Air might be the eighth one. Air Peace and Arik operate twice to Lagos and twice to Abuja daily from here and more frequencies are coming in. With time, there would be even more increase because the airport has high potential. We have been given the approval to resume international flights by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority(NCAA) but the foreign operators have refused to commence flights because of the curfew imposed by the Rivers State government. That is the only thing holding us down and nothing more".
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