05 March 2013, Lagos – Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos was last night hit by intermittent power outages, paralysing activities at the airport.
International airlines travelling to different parts of the world were forced to suspend activities following the development.
The power outages occurred three times, with the last outage lasting for about an hour.
Passengers who had gone through security screening to the airside had to wait at the boarding gates until electricity was restored, while those in queues waiting to be checked in had to wait too, thus delaying flights.
General Manager, Corporate Communications of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Yakubu Dati, while reacting to the incident, said the power cuts were caused by epileptic power supply from the dedicated lines at Egbin and Ejigbo power stations, following the thunderstorm that occurred last night.
He explained that when there was a power outage from one of the dedicated lines, FAAN switched over to the back-up line, which took a few minutes before electricity was restored to the airport.
