US carrier, Delta seeks clarity over Nigeria’s executive order on air transport

In a bid not to be caught as flouting the country’s directive, American carrier, Delta Air Lines said it is working with the Nigerian and United States Governments to understanding the new Executive Order which is aimed at easing way of doing business in Nigeria.

The carrier had on Tuesday insisted on manual screening of all its passengers, the airline has said that

This is as Woleshadare.net learnt that another foreign carrier, Virgin Atlantic may follow the stance of Delta by insisting on manual check-in for some of its passengers departing the country.

Delta in a terse statement from its media consultant in Nigeria said that it was working closely with the aviation authorities around the globe in ensuring safety of its passengers and equipment.

The statement added: “Delta is actively working with both the authorities in Nigeria and the United States to understand the new Presidential directive and ensure we remain compliant with the respective authorities.

“Delta is subject to U.S. Government and Nigerian Government security regulations. The safety and security of Delta’s customers and crew is the airline’s number one priority.”

However, a source close to Virgin Atlantic confided in our correspondent that the airline too may violate the executive order.

The source hinted that the airline had written officially to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and its logistics company in Lagos insisting that apart from the machine screening of the passengers, the law requires it to also conduct manual screening randomly on some of its passengers.

The airline it was gathered based its argument on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) of United States, which says that at least 25 per cent of luggage or persons travelling to the US must be checked manually by any carrier operating to US.

However, the airline could not carry out the manual check-in of any of its passengers yesterday as all the security tables hitherto used by security agents for manual screening of passengers were on Tuesday removed by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).

But, the airline it was gathered may resume manual screening of some of the passengers today as it made efforts to ensure that some of the counters were returned for manual screening of passengers.

The source said: “Virgin Atlantic has written to our company saying that it has to screen some of its passengers as required by TSA. They claimed that 25 per cent of the passengers must be screened manually.

“As at now, I don’t know the response of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and FAAN to that position, but I think they might commence that tomorrow (today).

It would be recalled that Delta had insisted on manual screening of some of its passengers on Tuesday despite the executive order, which nullified such, but FAAN insisted on the full implementation of the order, which is expected to fully take effect today, June 8, 2017.