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The Air Transport
Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria has expressed worries that
Nigeria may not attain the much coveted Category One status as a result
of “the high level of deficiencies” in the country’s aviation sector.

Speaking to
aviation correspondents during a press conference at the Murtala
Mohammed Airport (MMA), Lagos over the weekend, Benjamin Okewu,
president of the union said government’s failure to provide a national
carrier for the country will inhibit the attainment of the status.

“As far as my own
understanding is concerned, we can’t have category one, no matter how
we paint it to the world that Arik is a national carrier. We have told
them that we are in the International Travel Federation (ITF), and we
have told them that we don’t have a national carrier,” he said.

Mr Okewu argued
that the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) should have carried
out a thorough certification of airlines in the country before it
invited officials from the International Civil Aviation Organisation
(ICAO) and the United State Federal Aviation Authority (US FAA) to
Nigeria last week as regard the issuance of the Category One Status.

The association’s
president said Arik Air is a flag carrier, adding that no country in
the world had attained the much coveted qualification with a flag
carrier.

“They are
positioning Arik as a national carrier but the truth of the matter is
that Arik is not a national carrier. It is a flag carrier and there is
no way you can attain Category one without having a national carrier
and we have made it known to the government. This is actually painful
no matter how they look at it,” he said.

Last week, the
civil aviation regulatory body in the presence of officials from US FAA
at the authority’s headquarters annex in Lagos, issued the first Air
Operator Certificate (AOC) to Arik Air, on the grounds that the carrier
has met all details requisite for the qualification.

On attainment of
Category One status, indigenous carriers in the country will be able to
fly directly from Nigeria to the United States of America, hence saving
travelers the stress of flying from Nigeria to another country before
getting a flight to America.

Aviation Minister interfering with sanctions

Commenting on the
minister of aviation’s 90 days in office, Mr Okewu said the minister,
Fidelia Njeze, came into office with appreciable zeal to work, but is
currently going the way of her predecessors by interfering with
sanctions to erring airlines by the NCAA.

According to Mr
Okewu, airlines that fail to remit prescribed charges to designated
aviation authorities are defrauding the sector, as he called for the
invitation of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to
investigate the matter.

“Passenger Service
Charge (PSC) is collected on behalf of NCAA by the airlines and when
you collect you don’t remit, the word is fraud. That is why we said the
government should look at it and the EFCC should come in because this
has been ongoing and people are not doing anything about it,” he said.

The issue of
airlines indebtedness to various agencies in the aviation sector has
been ongoing, with some of the carriers showing reluctance in the
prompt and accurate remission of charges meant for the agency.

Mr Okewu, however,
frowned at the inability of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria
(FAAN) to install air field lightings at the 18L (18left) runway of MMA
for over three years, stressing that it is unfortunate for the
authority to have a lot of engineers in its workforce but keep
employing the services of contractors.

“Go to FAAN today, they have more than ten qualified engineers; but
why is it that for every project they want to execute, they give it to
contractors?” he asked. “It is in the process of giving out these
contracts that they have all these political implications and these are
the major issues that are affecting to the operations of FAAN.”