The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has stated that the rumours going on about the cannibalisation of the screening machines at the nation’s airports is not true.

This is just as the agency  stated that it has been carrying out due maintenance on its equipment in the country, adding that it would continue to do this for comfort and easy facilitation of passengers.

General Manager, Corporate Communications, FAAN, Mrs. Henrietta Yakubu, who spoke on the matter explained that FAAN had never cannibalised any of its equipment and that there are enough spare parts for its equipment nationwide.

Yakubu also explained that the agency’s engineers carry out regular and period maintenance of its entire facilities, assuring that FAAN would continue to create enabling environments for travellers and other users of its facilities.

According to her, “Those things broke down not because of non-availability of spare parts. Machines do breakdown and human beings, too. The machines work daily for 24 hours. They just had technical glitches during the week and before the end of the day, one of the machines was fixed and it started working. And over the weekend, all the three machines were back in perfect working conditions.The issues we had with screening machines didn’t compromise security in anyway. All the security agents that are with us at the airport came to assist us and where they needed to do manual check-in, they did and no passenger misses his or her flight as speculated in some quarters.. All the agencies cooperated with us to ensure that passengers met up with their schedules.”

She continued, “We don’t cannibalise our machines. We use them to screen passengers and baggage that come to the airport. FAAN is a very serious agency. We will not cannibalise machines. It is just because the machines were running all of the time and they just decided to breakdown. Some things happen that you don’t have a control over.”

She disclosed that the management team of FAAN, led by Engr. Saleh Dunoma on Tuesday went on inspection tour of the facilities at the international wing of the Lagos and expressed satisfaction with their performance.

The FAAN spokes person  said that the facilities at the terminal had improved in the past six months, stressing that the agency would continue to enhance their functionalities.

In her words, “The management at international (Lagos Airport) have refurbished the toilets and improved on the lightings; what is left now is the tiling. There have been a lot of changes in the past six months. The general ambience at the airport has improved and lots of things have been remodelled at the terminal. The signage has been worked upon. This has led to seamless passenger facilitation.”

On FAAN charges, Yakubu explained that these charges are in line International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) recommendations, contrary to speculation the agency’s charges were one of the most expensive in the world.