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NCAA: Why passenger traffic, complaints fell in 2017
The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has attributed the drop in passenger traffic in 2017 compared with 2016 to some of the problems associated with Arik, which necessitated the take-over of the carrier by the Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON).
The crises associated with the take-over after the carrier was enmeshed in heavy debts scandal led to cutting of all its international routes just as it also cut its domestic operations by almost 50 per cent.
The Director of Consumer Protection (CP), Adamu Abdullahi, disclosed these just as statistics released by the NCAA and made available to Woleshadare.net, shows passenger traffic on both the domestic and international routes inbound and outbound for 2017 fell when compared with 2016.
The 13,503 flights on international routes in 2017 as against 15,465 done in 2016 was as a result of decision of some foreign carriers to exit the country, occasioned by their trapped funds, which stood at $600 million then.
As at last week, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had defrayed $570 million airlines’ fund in its kitty, remaining just $30 million outstanding. At the height of the problem, airlines such as Emirates cut its two times daily flights to Lagos to one and suspended its Abuja operations. Iberia and United left the scene, while Kenya Airways limited its operations to just Lagos.
Emirates recently reinstated its Abuja operations that it suspended about two years ago. Abdullahi said: “One of the major players in the international scene, Arik air, stopped international operations after they were taken over by AMCON in 2016, throughout 2017 they did not operate international flights, those are the reasons for the drastic drop in the number.
“They also curtailed their domestic operations and a lot of their operations did not really take place and the number of flights they had going to their destinations really dropped; that is what led to these droppings even in the number of passengers that were carried.”
The document revealed that in 2017, passenger inbound traffic on the domestic routes was 3,780,576, while outbound was 3,865,499 in 2016, the traffic of inbound and outbound was 4,024,387 and 4,171,191 respectively. In 2017, inbound passenger traffic was 1,750,184, outbound 1,825,358, in 2016 inbound was 1,952,657, outbound was 2,011,705.
This decrease in passenger traffic of 2017 also affected the numbers of complaints and number of flights operated for the year received by the Consumer Protection Directorate of the NCAA.
According to the statistics, in 2017, the number of flights was 13,503 on international routes and on domestic routes 48,319, while in 2016, on international routes, it was 15,465, domestic 54,682. Passenger complaint was 200 on international and 78 on domestic routes.
Number of airlines on the international route was 30, while domestic were eight. He noted that of all the complaints received, over 132 cases were resolved, while the pending ones were still being worked on.
Abdullahi explained that during the period under review, three airlines were sanctioned for the violation of the consumer protection regulations of the NCAA, two foreign airlines and a local airline. He said the airlines were sanctioned for “failure/refusal to implement directives issued by the Authority on protection of consumer interest, which attracts N2 million penalty and for being discourteous to passengers, which attracts a minimum of N20,000.”
To him, the regulations are very clear, adding that when they do something wrong, there is a sanction attached to it, even a simple thing as being discourteous to passengers.
The regulations, he stated clearly spelt what the airlines are supposed to pay, hinting that these sanctions are broken down to minimum, moderate and maximum.
“Therefore if an airline staff is discourteous to a passenger for instance, a minimum sanction of N50,000 applies, moderate of N100,000 and maximum of N200,000.00 and if you can prove that that has happened and find the airline liable and it has to pay that sanction.
The airline we are talking about in the long run paid N20 million to the NCAA,” he added. Abdullahi said that the reason for sanctions was not to witch-hunt any airline but to put airlines on the right path to serve the passengers well.
“As much as possible in CPD, we have been running away in sanctioning an airline because we believe sanction is not a way of improving services.
The way to improving service really is to show both the airline and passenger why t a wrong is done make amends and in the long run it ends up in a handshake, we like that when it does, it mean there may not be a recurrence and when there is no recurrence, it means you have really succeeded in doing your job.
