The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has disclosed that the nation’s aviation industry witnessed a reduction of airlines from 150 in the year 2000 to about nine functional ones in 2017.
The general manager, public affairs NCAA, Sam Adurogboye, who made the observation at the weekend in a chat with aviation journalists at the Lagos airport Sam Adurogboye, described the drastic reduction as one of the achievements of effective regulation by his agency.
He however, absolved the regulatory agency of any responsibility for the problems being encountered by some domestic airlines.
Mr. Adurogboye, at the press briefing, however, said it was an erroneous claim that the NCAA was pushing airlines out of business through multiple charges and levies. “When the NCAA started on January 1, 2000, it had about 150 airlines on its register,” the spokesperson said. By 2006, they had reduced to 28 from 150, so what happened to the rest? They all went under because the NCAA had started regulating their operations.”
Meanwhile, the NCAA has criticised domestic airlines over their attitudes towards prompt payment of charges, stressing that there are lots of misconceptions about the five per cent Ticket Sales Charge (TSC), an obligation the airline owes the agency.
Adurogboye also informed that despite myriads of challenges facing the aviation sector, NCAA will remain diligent in the areas of enforcement and compliance by stakeholders.
Decrying poor performance of the airlines, particularly the domestic carriers in payment of charges, Adurogboye said, ‘‘if not for the foreign airlines that pay as at when due, they would have grounded NCAA in Nigeria.”
Adurogboye also maintained that there is no country where there are no charges, whether landing, parking, overflying, amongst others, stressing that there are some charges that NCAA are not charging in Nigeria, such as hotel, task, tourism development.
Blaming airlines for evading charges, the GM said “The business is highly capital intensive.