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NCAA is addressing peculiar needs of individual passengers, says Adamu Abdullahi

Adamu Abdullahi is the Director, Consumer Protection of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA). The consummate aviator, in this interview with Woleshadare.net speaks on issues affecting consumer protection in the aviation industry and how the aviation regulatory body has lived up to the billing to tackle all shades of infractions as they affect travellers. Excerpt
Arik Air has been taken over by the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON). Passengers’ money is with the airline and now they are not operating international flights for now, what would the NCAA do to ensure they are refunded?
Yes this true, this has even become more compounded because the new Arik management has come out openly to say that they have suspended flights to most of their international routes. JFK is out now, London Heathrow is no more but what we have done is to talk to the new management of the airline and through our Director General also speak to AMCON and inform them that yes, the airline’s accounts have been garnisheed but then there are some responsibilities that have to be carried out, in that, consumers, that is the airline passengers have to be catered for and so far, I would say, the new management has been doing the right thing. Since I spoke directly with the new management, we have noticed that they now carry passengers along, they have a robust customer service department now which I can vouch for which I know have been addressing passenger and addressing the peculiar needs of individual passengers to the extent that most the passengers have now virtually left unless off course you have booked your tickets for a much later flights and even at that, if by then the airline has not resumed those operations they will endorse you on another airline. That’s what they have been doing or they would refund you your full fare which they have also been doing. I will say they have been doing well, so far, so good; things have taken their right courses. We don’t have much number of aggrieved passengers anymore and not since last week.
Last year, passengers went through excruciating pain occasioned by cancellations, flight delays and this really made air travel very uninteresting. What is the assurance that things will be different this time around?
There is no assurance that what happened last year won’t happen again because in aviation, delays, cancellations, miss routed bags, missing bags etc are continuous things. They do happen. It is the handling that we have to look at. Regulation is very clear on that. If you delay a flight this is what the airline should do and this is what the passenger should do, if you cancel the flight, this is what the passenger should do, they have both obligations and they have their responsibilities. Therefore, in as much as the airlines do what they are supposed to do, we don’t have any quarrel, you can cancel all the flights you want to cancel but give the options that the regulations say you must give, take the passengers on another flights where possible, if not, refund them their money immediately, so that they can go and buy another tickets. Once that is done, there is nothing to worry about.

The Abuja airport closure is near. Passengers will feel the pain of commuting from Kaduna to Abuja, how can this be minimized?
We at Consumer Protection Directorate were carried along right from inception. We attended all the stakeholders’ meeting called by the Minister of State for Aviation. All the agencies are prepared for the closures. I was also at a meeting with the Kaduna State government officials and they have shown serious commitment to the airport. All the bad roads have been repaired; roads to the train station, as well as the bye pass have been done. So all in all, once the roads are done, traffic is controlled, you give people the alternatives so that if you need a helicopter, helicopter services are available which is now available anyway and if you need to go by train, you have access to train station. If you want to go by bus, the buses are made available; I don’t envisage we are going to have any problems. And this issue of international airlines opting not to go to kaduna is really a commercial decision. Governments can’t force them to operate to any airport. The minister has explained this many times. That is exactly where we are. So government is offering them kaduna as an alternative to Abuja. If the airlines don’t want to go to kaduna, it is their own choice; it is a commercial decision. They can come to Lagos or go to anywhere else they want to go to in Nigeria for the matter and once they have an agreement with their passengers as I said, it is a commercial decision and that’s that, there is nothing really to worry about.
You recently won an award as the Aviation Director of the year 2016 and your Directorate, the Best Overall Consumer Services Unit, how do you feel about this recognition?
It is recognition for things that the organizers considered we have done well. Beyond that, it started with our DG who has been doing things right. As you can see, we have recorded three straight years of accident free aviation now and we have minimized incidences in aviation and even the consumer protection issues that we have been getting complaints in thousands is now in trickles because the airlines now know what to do and they have been doing the needful so that customers get the services they pay for and all in all, I would say we are very glad that we are being recognized. Like I did at the awards ceremony, I dedicate the two awards to the men and women of the CPD who through rain, through sun, through shine have been in all the airports in the country trying to deliver the goods.