Domestic airlines operating in the country are calling on the Ghana Airport Company Limited (GACL) to allow the Kumasi airport to operate a 24 hour system at least for this festive season.
Citi Business News has learnt that the renovated Kumasi Airport will closed to air traffic by 10pm.
A number of huge international airports including Melbourne and JFK airports operate 24 hours a day.
Most European airports are however locked up between 11pm and 12 midnight until 5.30am.
Kumasi airport attainted international status on paper in 2003 but is yet to attain that status physically despite a recent facelift of the facility which saw the renovation of its runway and the installation of an Airfield Ground Lighting (AGL) system.
The Deputy Minister of Transport, Joyce Bawa Mogtari has said that despite the massive expansion works carried out on the Kumasi Airport, it still does not meet international standards.
Joyce Bawa explained that in order to attain the international status more work needed to be done on the Airport’s runway “and hopefully that should be completed probably in the shortest possible time. The airport is now well fitted out and prepared to receive larger bodied aircraft.” She said
But the domestic airline companies say night operations will help in revenue generation to help them meet the cost of operations.
According to the Chief Operations Officer of Africa World Airlines Apiigy Afenu “For us the more flights we do the better but the question is whether we would have enough passengers to fly because this is a new experience. All though you have people flying from Europe to Ghana with most flying over night, for domestic passengers flying at night will be new to them”.
He adds that night operations in Kumasi will help the aircrafts to be used to its full capacity.
“It’s a very good thing because an aircraft is supposed to be airborne, anytime it is on the ground you are losing money. For us night operations is good for us because theoretically its will increase the utilization of the aircraft and theoretically its means we can make money and pay for the lease and the other overheads.”
By: Norvan Acquah – Hayford/citifmonline.com/Ghana
