Posted by Sade Williams
Director general, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Captain Musa Nuhu, has said that Nigeria’s domestic aviation is growing as more entrants recently joined the sector even as more are still on queue processing their Air Operator’s Certificates (AOCs) with the Authority.
This is just as he expressed satisfaction over compliance of airline with safety regulations, saying that though, nothing is 100 percent.
Speaking at an interactive session with members of the League of Airports and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC) on Monday at the Lagos office of the NCAA, Nuhu said, ‘We have at least four more airlines processing their AOCs, we see that the domestic sector is growing, the rate of connections among cities is increasing, for instance, Nigerian Eagle has gone far with AOC’.
“We have the best relationship with the airlines but nobody can ground any airline without the approval of the DG, we could have issues here and there but the airlines have been in compliance with safety regulations but nothing is 100 percent”, he said.
Speaking on the debts owed by the airlines, the DG said the Authority has ‘cut the debt from growing’, adding that if the Authority should recover all the debts from the airlines in one fell swoop, they are likely to going to close shops.
He said with new entrants, there is a tripartite agreement on how they will remit their Passenger Service Charge (PSC).
“It is a legacy debt, a lot of them have mapped out their plans on how to pay”, he said.
He also disclosed plans to partner with the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) in a bid to assist Authority with digitisation and ICT system.
“We are in the process of automating our internal processes, it will help us ease our work, we will be able to cope with inspection and more of the oversight works seamlessly”, he added.
Meanwhile, the NCAA boss has disclosed that domesticated training has saved the Authority some significant funds, adding that the the five core mandatory training have all been domesticated due to COVID-19 issues.
While disclosing that the training are conducted by International Civil Aviation Organisation (CAO) Certified instructors, he said about 500 courses are going to be reviewed.
“Apart from any other benefits, it saves us Significant amount of money, we are even compliant with local content act. We are also going to equip or regional offices properly because it will make it much easier for us to carry out our surveillance , we are re doing a lot to reposition the NCAA. Hopefully, the Civil Aviation Act (amended) would be passed into law soon, we need to update our regulations because a lot of things have changed especially with COVID-19”, he added.
