NCAA says NG Eagle breached no AOC rules, to ground airlines over N46b debt

• It’s operation no pay no service-Najomo
• Sets up debt recovery task force

 The Acting Director-General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Capt. Chris Najomo has put to rest insinuations that a new entrant, NG Eagle got its Air Operator Certificate (AOC) through the back door, stressing that the airline met all the requirements for the all-important licence.

Explaining how the carrier got its AOC, Najomo stated that it went through the five stages of certification including requirements for demonstration flights, noting, “They did not breach any regulation.

His words, “ I need to throw some light into the NG Eagle project. The NCAA tries not to be partial in its dealings or favour anyone. We carry out our duties professionally. NG Eagle went through a five-phase certification process. The AOC was ready to be signed. The NCAA cannot be blamed that it was not signed. Eventually, when this entity was sold to the new owner, it was seen that nothing had changed the name, same stakeholders that went through the process.”

Demonstration flights were conducted with three Nigerian-registered aircraft. When they wanted to start operation, we looked at the documentation they submitted, and the only thing that changed was the Accountable Manager. We looked at it and found out that the accountable manager was ready to release funds for the safe operation of that airline as an entity.

“The director of operations, the chief pilot and the quality assurance manager for safety all remain in the previous entity. They did not breach any of our regulations because they have already demonstrated that. They were allowed to bring foreign registered aeroplanes to start. They did not breach any regulation to start”.

Najomo also in a media forum held yesterday in Lagos equally disclosed that airlines that are yet to come forward to offset their humungous debts running into several billions of Naira would be denied operations.

According to him, any airline that fails to service its debt henceforth may not have its Air Operator Certificate (AOC) renewed.

He stated that the authority had already set up a debt recovery task force mandated to implement the debt recovery drive, and declared,  “All debtors to the NCAA shall seize services from the authority. It’s operation, no pay, no service, now has strict sanctions for defaulting operators”.

Although, Najomo did not disclose how much the carriers owe the agency and other parastatals, as of August 2022, no fewer than 23 domestic airlines owe the Nigerian aviation agencies about N46 billion for various operational charges.

This is not the first time the aviation regulatory body would be speaking tough on debts owed it by airlines including many that had gone into extinction.

While they owed the NCAA, for statutory five per cent Ticket Sales Charge and Cargo Sales Charge (TSC/CSC) N19 billion and $7.8 million, they are also indebted to the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) to the tune of N18 billion and N5 billion, respectively.

The airlines’ debts to FAAN were for landing and parking charges, while the NAMA is for terminal and navigational charges.

The debts, according to the agencies, if not addressed might lead to a total comatose of the sector currently struggling to remain in operations due to a hike in aviation fuel, amongst others.

NCAA relies 100 per cent on its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). The 5 per cent TSC paid by passengers is 85 per cent of NCAA revenue, while the other 15 per cent comes from airlines as payment for services provided and they are all cost recovery.

Not a few believe that the airlines have intentionally refused to pay the debts owed even though they have collected such from the passengers. The airlines collect money and refuse to transmute such to the right authorities.

Wole Shadare