Nigeria to close capital's airport for 6 weeks to fix runway

Nigeria will close the airport in the capital Abuja for 6 weeks from February to repair its badly damaged runway, the govt said Tuesday, after airlines threatened to stop flying there. Flights to Abuja will be diverted to Kaduna, an airport used primarily for domestic flights and where airlines give out handwritten boarding passes. Kaduna lies about 160 km to the north of the capital and is linked by a pot-holed road where kidnappings have taken place. "The impact (on the economy) will be catastrophic," said Bismarck Rewane, a leading economist. "Kaduna airport does not have the facilities." Kaduna's international airport handled 12 flights in Dec 2015, the last month for which Nigeria's airports authority has figures, compared with 812 that used Abuja International. <br/>