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Passengers stranded at P-Harcourt airport lament

Posted by By John Ighodaro on 2005/07/15 | Views: 584 |

Passengers stranded at P-Harcourt airport lament


It was all gloom and lamentations at the Port Harcourt International Airport Wednesday night as stranded passengers bemoaned their fate, a fallout of the Lagos local airport incident where an aircraft over- shot the tarmac.

Port Harcourt - It was all gloom and lamentations at the Port Harcourt International Airport Wednesday night as stranded passengers bemoaned their fate, a fallout of the Lagos local airport incident where an aircraft over- shot the tarmac.

The Lagos incident had led to the diversion of flights meant for the Lagos airport to Port Harcourt International airport, as planes could not land at the Lagos airport.

Some of the stranded passengers at the Port Harcourt International Airport were passengers heading for Lagos but were diverted to Port Harcourt, and others who were heading for Lagos from Warri and whose flight were also diverted to Port Harcourt.

Others were passengers who were leaving Port Harcourt for Lagos only to be stranded at the Port Harcourt International Airport.

The Arrival hall of the airport and the grounds were filled with hundreds of stranded passengers.

Among them was a Warri-based legal practitioner, Mr. Charles Eabon who told Vanguard that he might consider suing the airline that owned the aircraft that brought him to the airport.

His words: "I am a lawyer, and I am based in Warri. About one or 1:30 p.m this afternoon (Wednesday) I was supposed to travel by Aero Contractors to Lagos from Warri. We were seeing Lagos but we couldn't land because we were told that an airplane had overshot the runway, so we had to fly back to Warri.

Continuing, he said, "you know, we have now heard that they said we should stay here till 8am tomorrow, you know, and there is no accommodation, nothing and I am supposed to be in Lagos tomorrow by 9 O' clock to attend to a court sitting which sits at 9 am, so even that tomorrow is not convenient for me. I will even prefer that I go back to Warri, so, this is the position we've found ourselves, there is no accommodation for us."

It was the same tale of woe from another stranded passenger. who introduced himself as Fola Yusuf.

According to him, "I work for General Oil and I am based in Lagos. I came to Port Harcourt to do some transaction here on behalf of the company and I am expected back in Lagos today only to get here and I am told that the flight will be late for some reasons not disclosed to us earlier. Later on, we now heard that probably a plane overshot the runway in Lagos. That's why we are still here this night. Nobody in the ADC airline has spoken to us. They are keeping mum."

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