Airport users groan as car hire operators’ strike

Hundreds of passengers were yesterday stranded at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos following the strike embarked upon by the limousine operators and car hires over the re-routing of the former by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN.

Vanguard gathered that the strike led to the grounding of activities at the airport as most of the limousine operators and car hires down tools for the day.

Vanguard further learnt that the car hire operators had complained to FAAN that the limousine operators (users of luxury cars for transport) regularly hijack their passengers, rather than using the allocated route of the Airport to the Ikeja axis alloted to them.

The protest however led to passengers being stranded at various bus stops from Ikeja under bridge to hajj camp and international airport car parks.

Vanguard also observed that passengers who intended to use the airport walked for many hours from their various destinations and the ever busy road suddenly became light of traffic.

Speaking, one of the limousine operators who spoke on the condition of anonymity accused FAAN of re-routing the limousine operators to Hajj Camp from Ikeja while the Sienna users were re-routed to the international wing of the airport from their usual hajj camp at the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company, NAHCO, Plc.

There are no fewer than 500 limousine and car hires operators registered with FAAN at the airport, but, they all refused to comply with the re-routing order by FAAN.