FAAN: Yellow Taxis, Others Must Register To Operate At Lagos Airport


The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has said that yellow taxis and others interested in operating at the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos, will not be allowed to do unless they register with the agency.

The agency spoke  in an interview with Daily Independent through the General Manager, Corporate Communications, FAAN, Mr Yakubu Dati, why reacting to allegation that the agency has bared yellow taxis  and other unregistered taxis from operating at the airport.

Dati said he was not aware of the development, adding that there are bus and cab operators known as Limousine drivers, who have registered with FAAN to operate at the airport.

Airport, he said is a restricted environment where there are specialised people offering services and that these people are given trainings to be able to operate at the airport.

According to him, “I am not aware of that such thing happened. Furthermore airport is an environment where you have specialised people offering certain services and paid for such services. We also have the what we call the Limousine drivers and taxis, who are registered with FAAN at the airport who provide such service because of the regulated and specialised environment which the airport is ,most of them also have some basic training in terms of courtesy, security and we also under take integrity test as well”.

Dati posited that it is because those operators operating at the airport are registered and also given some trainings on how to operate at the airport that often times bags left in taxis are returned to the owners.

He said that the day the authority start given access to unregistered yellow taxis  and others to operate at Lagos airport, it would be difficult to trace these taxis  and drivers in the event of any missing luggage or bag on board these taxis.

The General Manager stated that when there are infractions as it concerns missing passengers’ bags on board unregistered yellow taxis, it would affect not only the image of the airport but also the image of FAAN.

According to him, “That is why you have stories of passengers who left something in their bags and the bags and the content being returned to them because these drivers are registered to operate within the airport environment. You will agree with me that if somebody who did not register comes into the airport to operate and there are infractions it dents the image of the drivers who operate at the airport and the authority. 

So most times we encourage taxis that want to operate at the airport to register with FAAN so they would go through due diligent and they would be registered to operate within the airport environment”.

He continued, “Until you are registered with FAAN, you cannot operate within the airport environment. Our laws does not allow you to come and operate where others have registered and paid to provide the service and now you have come to operate to without being registered”.

Dati recalled that sometimes in the past there cases where non registered taxi operators come into the airport with the pretence of dropping   passengers but that they  eventually ended up picking up passengers, adding that most of the registered airport taxis are always at alert to ensure that when such things happen they immediately accost such taxi driver.

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