Nigeria closes Abuja Airport for Repairs
Nigeria closes Abuja Airport for Repairs
Nigeria has closed its main airport in the capital, Abuja, for six weeks to allow badly needed repairs to be carried out.
It comes after airlines threatened to stop flying there because of safety concerns over the state of the runway.
From now, those wishing to travel to Abuja are being encouraged to instead fly to the northern city of Kaduna, 190km (120 miles) away.
But all but one international airline has refused to fly there.
Ethiopian Airlines is currently the only company offering international flights to Kaduna, which has been hit recently by a spate of kidnappings.
The government has set up a dedicated Abuja Airport Closure website, where passengers can book free bus tickets for the two-hour journey by road.
“The runway has deteriorated to such an extent that it requires complete reconstruction,” the government said.
“This cannot be done at night. Furthermore, the runway has been maintained mostly through closure at night in the past several years, but is has reached a state where that method will not work anymore.”
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