Many have developed phobia for air travel due to its demand on time, safety of luggage and control of children. Some passengers even panic at take-off and landing, probably as a result of insinuations and experiences of others.
Despite all these challenges, there’s still so much patronage as it remains the fastest means of transportation.
Increased security measures in 2006 by aviation regulation bodies compounded these woes and the sight of queues snaking outside terminal buildings underline the reputation of most international airports.
This is nothing compared to what air travellers go through at the Murtala Muhammed International airport, MMIA, Ikeja, Lagos.
Apart from the presence of social miscreants all over the airport and money changers ready to defraud passengers, there are several other challenges travellers face in Lagos.
At MMIA,there is issue of baggage pilferage and passengers lose their luggage due to poor handling and terrible security lapses.
The presence of only one conveyor belt at the country’s best international airport where many flights arrive in a day further compounds the chaos as passengers wait endlessly for their luggage to be conveyed.
An aviation expert blames the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority for the way it distributes frequencies to airlines without taking into account the poor airport infrastructure.
At Lagos international and local airports, there is also the issue of orientation. A first time traveller passing through these airports can hardly get to the right place without a guide.
One can hardly distinguish between the international and local airports.
An aviation expert, Paul Mijksenaar, whose company has designed signs for airports in Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Athens believes that the first requirement for information is reliability.
“The first requirement is reliability. Once you are looking for something, you should find it on a sign close by and be directed all the way to reach your destination. A lot of sign systems are not good and sometimes the trail is lost and it stops.”
The sign systems are very bad at Lagos airports. Internationally, it is better to use black text on yellow background for flying information such as departures or arrivals, yellow text on black for bathroom facilities, green for exits and blue for food and retail. Pictogram should only be used for services easily imaged like taxis and phones, all signs at a particular airport should use just one font but in Lagos, anything goes. It is common to see yellow text on black background. It is also common to see yellow shops belonging to MTN dealers, green, red and colours belonging to other dealers being used indiscriminately.
There is also the aging terminal with an archaic architecture; MMIA and GAT terminals. An architect’s key aim is trying to reduce passenger stress, says Simon Smithson of Rogers, Stirk Harbour and Partners.
He was project architect of the new terminal at Barajas in Madrid, which won the architectural Oscar, the Stirling Prize, and he thinks a building’s design can go a long way to easing travellers’ tension.
“The most obvious challenge is being able to understand how the building is organised. Some of the worst cases are Gatwick or Schiphol where you enter the building and not have an idea of what your route is.” This is also true at the Lagos airports. A passenger who comes to the airport for the first time cannot say what the route is. The MMIA terminal just looks like an old container designed a hundred years ago.
Barajas has a high, wavy roof that makes the space feel airy and unconstrained, he says, and the roof almost floats, as if looking at the water surface while snorkeling. The glass walls are like “great big curtains” and give views of the planes outside.
Airports are the new plazas, the new town squares, he says, and should try to be a public space rather than a building.
“The visual and acoustic onslaught of advertising spaces and announcements is very wearing.
“Your foreground is a riot of information and conflicting objectives - ‘Buy, buy, sell, sell, go here, go there”.
“As architects we recognise that we have little control over that foreground but we have control over the container.”
Transport link is also very bad in Lagos airport. No matter how snazzy an airport building is, a fraught journey getting there will put passengers in a dark mood. With traffic jams all over Lagos and Lagos airport in particular, the journey to MMIA is always a very painful one.
At the Heathrow Airport in London, one has a choice to drive through the luxury and speed of the Heathrow Express, though for a fee of 15 pounds sterling compared to the often overcrowded Tube.
The issue of queuing at MMIA also comes to mind. There are lines for check-in, passport check, security, boarding pass/ gate, your seat on the aircraft and then baggage reclaim and immigration at the other end. Lagos can learn from Birmingham airport, says an expert. He said “Birmingham security is very quick and efficient. The airport has expanded its terminal building piecemeal but they seem to have got the balance right and baggage reclaim is pretty quick.”
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