MANY passengers billed to travel out of Lagos airport through the private terminal, otherwise known as MMA2, suffered flight delays and cancellation on Tuesday, following the blocking of the entrances leading to the terminal by members of the Air Transport Services Staff Association of Nigeria.
The union is protesting the sack of 37 workers in the terminal by the management of the operator, Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL). Out of the 37, the union alleged that 34 were its members.
Following the protest and the action taken by the union, all the domestic airlines operating through the private terminal were left in the cold as none could operate its morning flights, with their passengers left hanging around hopelessly.
The union’s struggle has started taking its negative toll on the affected airlines as they had informed their passengers to brace up for disruption of flights today.
The management of Ibom Air, in a notice sent out to passengers and entitled, ‘Urgent Announcement: Picketing of MMA2 Lagos By Labour Union’ declared: “This is to bring to the attention of our esteemed passengers and the public that our operating terminal out of Lagos, the Murtala Mohamed Airport 2, operated by Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited, has been completely closed off to workers and passengers alike by the labour union very early this morning.
“Efforts are currently being made to resolve the situation. However, please note that this action will greatly impact our flights scheduled in and out of Lagos today.
“We greatly regret the impact of this unexpected action on your day’s plans as we urge you to kindly stay close to all our communication channels for subsequent updates.”
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The decision of the union has elicited condemnation from key players across the sector with many describing the latest picketing as unreasonable at a time the airlines and the sector are going through hard times.
Among the negative comments coming from stakeholders in the sector included: “Are there no better ways of registering their displeasure over issues, other than disrupting businesses and creating losses for the same organisations from which they earn their daily bread?
“The essence of unionism is completely defeated if aviation unions fail to engage the full civilised conflict management mechanisms such as: collective bargaining and negotiated settlement in dealing with issues. As the ATSSSAN continues with the picketing of the MMA2 terminal at the Lagos airport, affected airlines diverted their flights to the terminal one at the local airport as a temporary measure.
Arik Air announced to its passengers that it will operate its flights out of Lagos to Port Harcourt, Benin and Warri from the General Aviation Terminal One as against the hitherto operations of the flights from the MMA2 troubled spot.
Equally, the management of Air Peace asked its passengers whose flights were affected by the picketing to proceed to the terminal one for their take-off. Other airlines also affected by the picketing include: Max and Azman and Aero.
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