Ken Okeke
The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) would in January 2024 make a wide range of decisions that would help the aviation industry in terms of consumer protection, airport certification, and new policies on the mode of handing over aerodromes to the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) by the state government among others.
The Acting Director-General of the agency, Capt. Chris Najomo at a meeting with a group of aviation stakeholders in his office in Lagos said starting from January 2024, airlines found wanting to have delayed passengers and which actions cause delay or flight cancellation would be made to give affected travelers 25 per cent rebate on their next flight with the airline.
Najomo said the directive had been communicated to the carriers, stressing that the action would engender efficiency in the sector that has made air travel no longer enjoyable as travelers daily decry the attitude of many of the airlines and the total lack of consumer protection.
He however defended the carriers saying many of the problems that cause flight delays or cancellations are caused by factors beyond the airlines’ control.
He listed the factors as VIP movements that make the airspace closed whenever the President, Vice-President or any top diplomats have their aircraft set for take-off or landing, weather-related issues, and inadequate infrastructure that make passenger processing very slow and cumbersome, there causing schedule disruptions.
He further stated that the aviation regulatory body was doing so much in-house to reduce the menace that has taken the joy out of air travel.
“The airlines are biting more than they can chew. Lack of planning is causing some of the delays we are experiencing. Some airlines for instance have less than four aircraft and they want to fly all the routes. That is not possible because four aircraft capacity cannot sustain the type of operations you are doing.
“Some of the delays, and cancellations by Air Peace are because you want to go everywhere when there may not be adequate aircraft to cover that volume of operations”.
Touching on other controversial issues that had put the sector on the edge for so long, Najomo bemoaned the huge number of airports across the country, wondering why state governments would spend so much money to build airports and hand them over to the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), further putting huge financial strain on the airports’ authority.
He disclosed that a policy would be made to ensure that the state-owned airports are run by the state governments for at least five years before they are handed over to FAAN to manage.
Nigeria has over 32 airports while state governments are building more. Out of the 32, only about six are viable. The viable airports are the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport Abuja, Port-Harcourt International Airport, Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano and Owerri Airport.
In this circumstance, the regulatory authorities are “forced” to spend revenue earned from four viable terminals in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, and Kano to subsidise operations in these other airports managed by FAAN.
From estimation, not less than N400 billion have so far been expended on such projects by the states, development, observers reckon as a mere conduit to siphon public funds than for economic interests.
Even as most of the aerodromes currently operate far below the requisite capacity, some states like Edo, Abia, Ebonyi, Jigawa, Nasarawa, Ogun, Osun, Ekiti, and a few others were recently approved by the Ministry of Aviation.
Najomo attributed the proliferation of airports by the state government as purely ‘political’ rather than for the good of their states, stressing that others in the North are purely for Hajj exercise.
“Many of these airports are for political reasons. Most of the airports are unviable; built without traffic in mind and leaving the burden to the Federal Government to shoulder. Airports should be a catalyst for economic development. It has to be well thought through. It becomes a problem when an airport will not generate economic returns”.