The Director-General of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, Capt. Musa Nuhu, has disclosed that the recently introduced civil aviation regulation, requiring a minimum of six aircraft for start-up airlines, is intentionally implemented to safeguard the viability and stability of incoming airlines within the aviation sector.
Nuhu also said the acquisition of six airplanes is not
restricted to new entrants, he stated that the old ones also have a period by
which they have to comply.
In a virtual meeting with aviation correspondents on
Thursday, many of the country’s airlines do not have the capacity to meet their
current financial obligations.
He said, “If you have three aircraft for instance and you
lose one out of it, it has become a problem to meet up with your operations
then, you start to have issues with flight delays, cancellations, and all that.
The number of aircraft you will have will depend on the kind of operations you
want to do.”
“You can imagine somebody who comes in with just one or two
aircraft and one of the aircraft goes out of business, and sells tickets to the
passengers, think of what will happen. For you to have six aircraft, it shows
you have very strong financial backgrounds of running an airline.”
“If everybody has one or two aircraft, we will keep having
this recurring problem. We have to avoid that. People will criticize, but every
country is different. We have to look at our own peculiar history and try to
come up with solutions, but regulations are not cast in stone. If the situation
changes, the regulation would be reviewed accordingly. Whenever it is
necessary, we don’t have to wait for five years before we make amendments,” he
added.
The aviation regulatory he further stated is trying to
institutionalise NCAA; make it a proper institution so that the standard is
maintained across board, he, however, noted that it is still an ongoing
process.
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