Obiora Okonkwo, the executive chairman of United Nigeria Airlines, on Thursday, dismissed allegations that domestic operators failed to remit the five percent Ticket Sales Charge (TSC) to the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), insisting instead that Nigerian airlines had maintained full compliance with the regulatory agency before recent labour disputes.
Speaking at the 30th annual conference of the League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC) in Lagos, with theme: ‘Towards a Sustainable Aviation Industry: Balancing government revenue demands with sector growth,’ Okonkwo said that prior to February this year, all airlines were meeting their financial obligations to the government without issue.
According to Okonkwo, payment difficulties emerged only when airlines began to have issues with the cost of aviation fuel which had increased to N3,300 as a result of the US-Iran crisis. He said the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) was the first to raise concerns about the financial burden of regulatory charges during the downturn. “Before February this year, there were no payment problems. All airlines were paying.
The AON issue only became a problem because of the Gulf crisis. AON was the first to cry out. We wrote to the President, explaining that we could no longer pay these charges. We requested either a complete suspension of charges or temporary relief during the aviation crisis, and the request was granted. The President agreed and waived 30 percent,” Okonkwo disclosed.
Following the presidential waiver, Okonkwo said airlines had a meeting with the NCAA and the Ministry of Aviation to establish a structured repayment framework. “We met with NCAA and the Minister. We held several meetings. In one decisive meeting, NCAA requested that airline operators pay 10 percent of the legacy debts within a specified period, and then pay the rest in instalments over a period of time and each