Nigerian airlines owing Staff to be shut down

Nigerian airlines that do not pay staff
regular salaries will be shut and a
comprehensive audit of all carriers will soon
be conducted, aviation authorities said on
Monday as concerns are being raised over
the safety of Nigeria’s skies.
The Director General of the Nigerian Civil
Aviation Authority, NCAA, Captain Fola
Akinkuotu said at a press conference in
Lagos, southwestern Nigeria, that financially
distressed airlines will be stopped from
operating.
“NCAA will not permit any airline that is not
financially sound to continue to operate,”
Akinkuotu said.
He said NCAA has enough power to
intervene and to look at economic viability
of the airlines.
Captain Fola Akinkuotu
Akinkuoto said while the agency does not
intend to kill airlines or stifle their growth,
as a regulator it will ensure that only
financially sound airlines operate in the
interest of safety.
Akinkuotu, who spoke at the NCAA
headquarters in Lagos disclosed that all
Nigerian airlines will also be required to go
through an IATA Operational Safety Audit,
also known as IOSA audit.
An IOSA programme is an evaluation system
designed to assess the operational
management and control systems of an
airline. It is a programme designed by the
International Air Transport Association,
IATA.
“Airlines will be required to have IOSA audit
as we go forward and ensure that their
audit is tidy,” Akinkuotu said.
He said he will address the issue of airlines
interlining in the near future. But experts
say as a regulator, NCAA does not have that
power.
Interlining, also known as interline ticketing
is a voluntary commercial agreement
between individuals airlines to handle
passengers travelling on itineraries that
require multiple airlines.
Akinkuotu also debunked reports by some
NCAA staff that the agency is broke. An
aircraft inspector had told the media that
the agency is broke and training has
dwindled in the agency.
But Akinkuotu said the agency is financially
buoyant.
“The NCAA is not broke. As I speak, there’s a
group of young people in training in
Manchester. There is nobody who is
supposed to go to training who has not
gone for training. NCAA has a huge budget
for training. People go for training almost
everywhere,” he said.
NCAA DG said the incident involving an IRS
plane at the Kaduna airport on Sunday was
not very serious even though passengers
had to disembark on the runway and
firefighters and other emergency teams
were on standby.
He said information given to the media was
not correct and called on journalists to cross
check information before going to press.
“This briefing has become necessary, even
after our press statement yesterday,
explaining the circumstances that
necessitated the aircraft landing on the
runway, because of the misrepresentation
of facts on the incident in some sections of
the press,” Akinkuotu said.
“For the purpose of reinforcement, we wish
to restate that the affected F100 aircraft
operated by IRS Airline, Reg. No. 5N-HIR
landed safely at the Kaduna Airport,
following a hydraulic alert in the cockpit
while on final approach at the airport,” he
said.
Akinkuotu said he is willing to use his 40-
year experience in the aviation industry to
train Nigerian journalists on how to report
aviation stories.
However, when a journalist asked the
chairman and chief executive officer of IRS
airline, Rabiu Isyaku Rabiu, how many
aircraft he has in its fleet and when he last
paid his staff, Akinkuotu said the airline
boss should not answer because he was
invited as a guest.
He said Rabiu will provide the answer after
the press conference. However, after the
press conference ended Rabiu passed
through the back door and left.