Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago of Niger State has disclosed that government had opened talks with private airline operators to commence commercial flight operations at the Abubakar Imam International Airport, Minna.
He spoke while inspecting the ongoing reconstruction of the runway and terminal projects at the airport.
The governor who expressed concern over the slow pace of work on the terminal, said the state government would invite the contractor and see how it would take over the project for immediate completion.
He said completion of the terminal would set the ball rolling to commence commercial flight operations.
“As a state government we want to invite the contractor to see how we can intervene and if possible take over the job so that we can have functional airport.
“It’s our desire to provide commercial flights and we are talking to some private airline operators to come to the state,” he said.
On the runway project, the governor expressed delight with the quality of job done and said he was optimistic that the work would be handed over before August 15.
The contractor handling the runway project assured that he would meet the date as asphalt would be laid by Tuesday next week and it would ready for aircraft to land on it as from August 16.
