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Business News of Monday, 8 October 2012

Source: Daily Guide

Kumasi Airport Reopens

The Kumasi Airport has been re-opened after barely a week of closure.

The Ghana Airports Company, in a statement, expressed gratitude to domestic airlines and the general public for their co-operation.

It expressed its regrets for the inconvenience that the closure of the airport caused passengers.

The Kumasi Airport was temporarily closed down for repair works on the defected tarmac.

The Ghana Airports Company said it was compelled to embark on the unannounced closure after its officials detected some cracks which had developed into a hole on the tarmac.

The closure, which took effect from Saturday morning, happened at a time when domestic airlines had introduced attractive packages to woo the traveling public, which seemed to be yielding results.

The development did not only affect domestic flights but forced managers of domestic airlines to refund fees paid by customers, among other things.

Some customers were forced to fly from Accra to Sunyani and then connected back to Kumasi by road.

Explaining further, Collins Dauda, Minister of Transport, sarcastically likened the holes that developed on the runway to a ‘galamsey’ pits and consequently called for massive infrastructural improvement periodically at the country’s airports.

According to Mr. Dauda, his ministry initially thought the defects on the Kumasi Airport runway were minor so it quickly dispatched men to Kumasi to correct the anomaly for the airport to remain in operation.

However, it later realized that the damage on the runway was a major one which needed extensive works to help solve the problem.