Airlines yet to get N4b stimulus package seven weeks after pledge
Weeks after announcing N4B stimulus package for airlines, airlines operators are yet to get the money; a situation that led to call for the release of the money to assist carriers get out of the woods.
The much talked about stimulus many said despite how small it is would help to solve some of the airlines’ problems.
Consequently, the Federal government has been asked to release the fund to the aviation industry to save struggling domestic airlines.
President, Rotary Club of Falomo, Rotarian Peter Nwaochie who spoke to journalists at the Lagos airport at the weekend shortly after presenting sets of wheelchairs to the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) said every domestic airlines in the country was struggling to make ends meet hence the astronomical rise in air fare
Nwaochie, who was an aide to Mrs Kema Chikwe, a former Minister of Aviation under former President Olusegun Obasanjo administration said the current pandemic raving the entire world has greatly affected aviation industry bringing it to a sorry state in Nigeria
He regretted that presently nothing has been done in form of palliatives to rescue struggling domestic airlines adding that funds promised airlines and aviation sector should be made available to them as a cushion in effect.
“We are living at unusual time and the aviation industry is very strategic, it’s a catalyst for development in any modem economy, but in Nigeria today aviation is in a sorry state. Airline operators are talking of palliatives, support, nothing is being done “
According to him, the position of the government revealed that they were not ready to do anything” The government is not ruling pigs, goats but human human beings.
Nwaochie noted that most Nigerians were not happy with the sky rocketing of airfares in the country, calling for an urgent arrest to the ugly trend in the fare wars but human beings, most people are not happy, aviation fuel has gone up 100 percent “
He commended the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) for carrying out their oversight function dIligently hence the country has not recorded any serious crash and warned against cutting corners.
The Federal Government had on November 2, 2020 approved N4 billion as bailout fund to airlines to cushion the effects of the impact of the devastation of COVID-19 on their operations.
Aviation Minister, Hadi Sirika made the announcement in Abuja at a three day public hearing to repeal and enact Acts of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB), Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) and that of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).
