Posted by The Vanguard on
Sequel to the incident involving Lufthansa Airlines' Airbus A340-300 aircraft at the Murtala Mohammed Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, management of the airline of the carrier may make claims for disbursement from relevant aviation authorities.
Sequel to the incident involving Lufthansa Airlines' Airbus A340-300 aircraft at the Murtala Mohammed Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, management of the airline of the carrier may make claims for disbursement from relevant aviation authorities.
The airliner which landed on a freshly resurfaced pothole, while on its way from Frankfurt, with over 200 passengers, suffered severe damage, and had since been grounded at the Lagos airport.
Lufthansa's General Manager, Nigeria and Managing Director, West Africa, Mr. Mike Khan, told newsmen at a forum that the airline's management were still computing money being expended on the aircraft's repairs.
Khan, who noted that the aircraft would take millions of euros to repair, said the management would decide whether to make claims for compensation or not as soon as the repair was concluded.
"The aircraft suffered severe damage, and it is going to cost us millions of euros to repair.
Once we complete the repairs, we would know what to do concerning claims," he said.
Observers believe that the airline could make claims for cost of repairs, especially as no notice to airmen (NOTAM) was served it relating to the resurfaced portion of the runway that caused the incident.
He noted that Nigeria's aviation industry has the potential for growth, stressing that Africa as a whole, contributes only 1.3% to the airline's profit annually.
On what Lufthansa was giving back to the country as part of its social responsibility, Khan said that the airline has plans to continue to equip the health facilities it built in the South- East zone of the country.
Meanwhile, the airline has declared its region by region passenger and cargo traffic figures for the month of July, 2005, just as the electronic charts of its subsidiary, Lufthansa Systems, had been successfully integrated into the new Airbus A380 super jumbo jet coming into operation in 2007.
Statistics released by Lufthansa Group shows that the airline lifted 4.8 million passengers and 147.000 tonnes of cargo during the period, representing 2.2% and 0.2% respectively.
The figure shows that while Europe, including Germany, contributed 3.653 million passengers, both North and South America passenger traffic was 609,000.
Similarly, Asia/Pacific's contribution stood at 330,000, just as the Middle East and Africa contributed the lowest at 167,000 passengers.
In cargo airlift for the period, Europe contributed 61 tons; North and South America, 42 tons; Asia/Pacific, 36 tons and Middle East and Africa, eight tons.
On the electronic charts for the A380 aircraft, Chief Executive Officer of Lufthansa Systems Group, Wolfgang Gohde, said the facility was designed for providing a paperless cockpit, since it is meant to complement the Airbus on-board information system.
According to him, the electronic charts system, a fully database-driven chart production, will allow unique functionalities as single procedure presentation for standard instrument departures and arrivals, chart presentation always to scale and minimum sector altitude visualisation.
Gohde said of the electronic charts: "The integration of our chart solution into the cockpit of the A380 highlights our pioneering role in flight information services. "The successful first step to the integration of our solution is the result of the excellent co-operation between Airbus and Lufthansa systems.
"Our customers have every reason to expect both economic benefits and simplified logistics as a result of this co-operation."
Lufthansa Systems declared a profit of 628 million Euros in the 2004 business year.