LAGOS  – Air Peace on Saturday morn­ing diverted its Kano bound flight to the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja, over poor visibility at the airport.

Apart from Air Peace, oth­er airlines like Azman Air and Max Air failed to operate their flights out of the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), Lagos, to northern destinations due to the same reason of fog­gy weather in most parts of the northern states.

No fewer than 160 passen­gers of Air Peace flight P47420 on its Airbus 320 aircraft, which departed Lagos Airport at 6.25am on Saturday to Kano, were diverted to Abuja because of the poor weather condition.

The aircraft was within the Kano airspace when the pilot decided to divert the plane to Abuja as the poor weather con­dition in Kano degenerated.

At Abuja airport, the airline advised its passengers to either disembark or return to Lagos.

Some of the passengers took the option of returning to Lagos, while the others dis­embarked at Abuja airport.

One of the affected passen­gers, who identified himself as Mr. Adekunle Adelabu, told our correspondent that the pilot in­formed them of the poor visi­bility in Kano before diverting to Abuja.

According to him, the situ­ation had led to the disruption of his plan in Kano, but lauded the pilot for his display of pro­fessionalism.

He said: “While we were in Kano airspace, the pilot an­nounced to us that the flight would be diverted to Abuja airport because of the poor weather in Kano.

“At first, some of the passen­gers were apprehensive of the situation, but nothing is more precious than life.

“At Abuja airport where we landed safely, the airline at first told us to wait for an hour to know if the weather condition would improve in Kano, but af­ter about two hours, we were given an option of either dis­embarking on return to Lagos.

“Some of the passengers de­cided to return to Lagos, while others took the option of dis­embarking in Kano. I love the professionalism of the pilot because he didn’t expose us to unnecessary danger.”

The northern parts of the country are currently expe­riencing shades of cloudy and foggy conditions, while flights to southern parts were not affected so far by the poor weather.

Also, at the Ilorin Airport, no flight could land or take off as the poor weather pervades the city.

Some of the passengers who had earlier booked for flights to either Abuja or Lagos and other destinations could not proceed due to the bad weather.

As at the time of filing this report, the situation had not changed at the airport.