‘Air Peace first commercial flight to land on N60bn Bayelsa Int’l Airport’
After months of postponements, history was weekend made at the newly completed N60bn Bayelsa International Airport (BIA), Yenagoa as the first commercial flight, Air Peace touches down on the brand new tarmac from Lagos few minutes after the flight carrying the State Governor landed from Abuja.
On arrival, Governor Seriake Dickson, said the airport was built to improve the economy of the state, and would soon be fully inaugurated for both local and international flights.
He sounded more proud when he averred that “The state government handled the entire project without input from the Federal Government or the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC)”.
“The project was handled by Dantata and Sawoe at the cost of about N60bn, plus additional N5bn being the total cost of adequate compensation for the five communities who are the original landowners.
While denying the earlier report that the state government spent between N120bn and N150bn on the project, Gov Dickson revealed that the airport would be able to handle flights by big aircraft such as the Boeing 777.
Earlier in his remarks, the Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Mr Daniel Iworisoma, said the airport with 3.7-kilometre runway would create over 2,000 formal and informal jobs for indigenes of the state.
According to him, “We must put politics aside for us to have development. This is the first airport in Bayelsa, to help develop the economy.
“This airport will serve as a hub for the petroleum industry but we want to also look away from oil and gas and look at other revenue sources; so this is a legacy project.”
Welcoming the project, the Senator representing Bayelsa East, Ben Bruce, acknowledged that the airport would ease movement for indigenes of the state and also boost trade and commerce.
Also speaking, the Airport Manager, Mrs Elizabeth Daitere, noted that the airport would operate day time flights, for now even though all safety infrastructures are in place for commercial and cargo flight operations.
While giving instance with the inaugural commercial flight from Lagos, Daitere averred that heavy commercial flight operations would soon commence for Bayelsa-Lagos-Bayelsa and Bayelsa-Abuja.
