Thirteen airlines fail to remit N14.7bn ticket funds to NCAA

Thirteen airlines owe the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) a total of N14,731,838,064.59 non International Air Transport Association (IATA) five per cent Tickets  Sales Charge (TSC) which domestic carriers reportedly collected for the agency but refused to remit.

Out of this amount, a paltry N301,835,785.88 had been offset by the debtor carriers; a situationthat has put the airlines and NCAA at loggerheads as later threatened to sanction erring operators.

The airlines that are indebted to the aviation regulatory body are Aero Contractors (N389,839,503.42); Arik Air paid N61,477,779.67, but has outstanding debts of N9,460,745,429.96; Chanchangi N442,148,618.52; Dana Air N1,241,951,184.28 but only settled N57,500,000.00; FirstNation N421,444,960.13 but offset N8,370,066.00;  IRS N1,054,403,662.52; Medview N1,037,629,402.23 but settled only N30,000,000.00.

Others debtors are Overland Airways which owes N19,436,520.83 but paid N12,311,189.43, Azman N321,729,901.04 but only paid N20,000,000.00; Discovery N28,339,864.19; Air Peace N309,484,328.92 but paid N109,862,633.84; African World N1,204,503.55 and Cronos Air N3,480,185.00.

Aviation consultant and former Commandant, Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, Grp. Capt. John Ojikutu (rtd) said the National Civil Aviation Regulations requirements for all airlines to remit five per cent of their ticket sales and cargo sales to the NCAA which had led to a spat between airlines and the carriers cannot be changed or suspended overnight.

He stated that government through the NCAA has been losing substantial revenue from the TSC and Cargo Sales Charges because most of the operating airlines were not complying with the respective regulations.

He accused the carriers of short-changing the aviation regulatory body by not their failure to remit what they had already collected from passengers on behalf of NCAA.

Ojikutu blamed the agency for the situation because of its passiveness in ensuring that the airline operators implement the various provisions of the regulations sufficiently before now.

Specifically, the regulations require: all domestic and international airlines operating in Nigeria to forward to the authority through electronic platform all relevant documents as Flown Coupons, Passengers and Cargo Manifest, Air Waybills, Load Sheets etc within 48 hours after each flight (NCAR 18.12.1.1).

Ojikutu disclosed that in 2015 and 2016, the ticket sales submitted by the airlines to the NCAA and presented at a press briefing early this year were respectively N385 billion and N330 billion  from about 15 million passengers in each of the two years.

To him, about five million passengers were recorded as international passengers and 10 million as the local passengers.