Woleshadare.net learnt that this business is growing as more affluent individuals are travelling in style, thereby making the business, which was badly affected, show signs of recovery.

This is fuelled mostly by state governors, who still travel in style, coupled with huge peace in the oil rich Niger-Delta which has made oil firms to engage private jets and helicopters for oil exploration in the area.

Across the tarmacs are sophisticated private jets. While many are for rental, others are owned by wealthy Nigerians.

The airplanes had disappeared then as many politicians sold them because they could no longer afford the huge cost of maintenance and operations.

 Hiring an average aircraft to any destination within Nigeria costs about $15,000 per return trip that lasts not more than three hours on landing. At the expiration of the three hours, additional $1000 is charged per hour, aviation stakeholders told our correspondent.

This is happening at a time nearly all the states are struggling to pay salaries, with majority of them owing backlog of salaries despite receiving tranches of bailouts from the Federal Government.

The state chief executives indulge in the luxury of chartering aircraft only to attend political rallies, wedding ceremonies and other social events with no direct economic benefits to their cash-strapped states, investigation showed.

One of the charter operators, who spoke under anonymity for fear of hurting his business in Abuja, said a governor (name withheld) had a chartered jet attached to him gulping millions of naira weekly.

A return trip cost the state some $25,500 because he was given a discount. The high demand for these jets and the huge market for them made the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority of Nigeria (NCAA) to insist on applying the rules fully on private jet owners on foreign registration for their planes.

Just last month, the agency said it won’t back down on its regulations, just as the owners of some of the expensive aircraft are crying foul, saying the NCAA plans to run them out of business.

Spokesman of NCAA, Sam Adurogboye, said that the agency would stand by its regulation because of the abuse foreign registered aircraft owners subject their equipment to in the country by running operations that are alien to what their operations stipulate. His words: “We are already investigating an airline.

It is a very complicated investigation on how jet owners use their airplanes to carry out nefarious activities.

The investigation has revealed a lot of things. There are so many infractions by these airlines endangering people’s lives.

“There is nothing NCAA is doing that is outside our regulation, which all the airlines, whether scheduled or non-scheduled are not conversant with.” A close look at Part 8.2.1.9-A of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Regulation (NCAR) states, “No person shall operate a foreign registered aircraft in general aviation in Nigeria except in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Flight Operations Clearance Certificate (FOCC) and the Maintenance Clearance Certificate (MCC) issued by the authority and in force in respect of that aircraft.”

The regulation further states that the FOCC and MCC shall be issued for a period not exceeding six months and be renewed only once for a maximum period of six months. Adurogboye affirmed that NCAA, based on its law, only grants or clear operators of foreign registered aircraft operating in Nigeria six months to operate that equipment. “They still have the benefit of another six months after the second after the first six month window.

NCAA will not grant the owner or operator a third chance. After that you deregister from the foreign registration and re-register your aircraft with NCAA. The FOCC is a temporary permit.” “There is nothing wrong with people giving foreign registration to their aircraft. All that is critical is that they subject the operations of their private jets in Nigeria to the prescribed rules and regulations rolled out for such category of operations by the regulator,” he added.

The reason for an increased number of foreign registered private/corporate jets in Nigeria has been traced to lower insurance policy cover, convenience to secure services of crew members as well as a ploy to conceal real ownership.